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HISTORICAL MEMORIALS 



NORTHAMPTON : 

TAKEN CHIEFLY FROM UNPRINTED RECORDS. 

J^Y THE 

REV. C. H. HARTSHORNE, M.A. 




,$0* W CCN6^ 



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NORTHAMPTON ; ABEL AND SONS, 
LONDON: JOHN HENRY PARKER, 377, STRAND; 

AND' BROAD STREET, OXFORD. 
M DCCC XLVIII, 



c/i> 



Mo 

.71 W 3 



OXFORD : 
PRINTED BY I. SHRIMPTON. 



TO 

FREDERIC EARL SPENCER, 

THE UNDEVIATING FRIEND 

TO THE INTERESTS OF NORTHAMPTON, AND 

THE LIBERAL PROTECTOR 

OF ITS INSTITUTIONS : 

THIS VOLUME, ILLUSTRATIVE OF ITS EARLY HISTORY AND PRIVILEGES, 

IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED 

BY HIS OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Charters . 1 

Extracts from the Chamberlain's Book of Mi- 
nutes 84 

Municipal Archives 101 

The Castle and Parliaments . . . .111 

Queen Eleanor's Cross 174 

The Religious Houses in Northampton . . 197 

The Mint 219 

The Fire 224 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Remains of the Castle 
Queen Eleanor's Cross 
Details of the Cross 
Details of the Cross 
Town Seals 
Postern Gate of Castle 
Figures of Queen Eleanor 



to face p. 116 

174 

192 

194 

1, 110 

. 173 

. 182, 183 



THE CHARTERS. 





N the Conquerors survey, 
Northampton is described 
as having contained at the 
time of King Edward the 
Confessor sixty burgesses, 
with as many dwellings in 
the royal demesne; but when the account was 
completed in 1086, fourteen of the latter were set 
down as lying waste, and the remainder, with forty 
burgesses, were in the possession of the crown. 
There were in the town altogether two hundred 
and twenty-five houses, valued at £10. lis. Id. a 



2 conqueror's survey. 

year, being a fraction less than a shilling each. 
The Record states that the burgesses of Hantone 
(Northampton) rendered annually to the sheriff 
£30. 10s. This belonged to the farm; and the 
Countess Judith, William's kinswoman, had seven 
pounds out of the issues of the said borough. 

In examining this extract it appears that there 
were at the earliest known period, sixty burgesses 
within the royal demesne, having as many houses, 
and since the houses and their occupants are both 
mentioned in immediate connexion with each other, 
it may be justly inferred that the burgesses them- 
selves were anciently householders. No persons 
having the former appellation are named in con- 
junction with the other dwellings, and therefore 
those dwellings we may suppose to have been 
tenanted by strangers, religious persons, females, 
agricultural labourers, bondmen, or by those who 
from poverty were unable to pay their share of the 
common expenses, and who consequently were not 
entitled to rank as burgesses. "Nothing has oc- 
curred/' says one of the best investigators of the 
subject, "down to the present time, to alter the 
class or description of persons who at the close of 
the Saxon dynasty were called burgesses," and it 
is to these early times therefore that we must direct 



EARLY STATE OF FREEMEN. 3 

our researches for a true description of the duties 
and privileges of a body of men, who from the 
commencement of the Saxon government, if not 
before, were called freemen. At this remote time 
there is no mention whatever of any grant of in- 
corporation, or of any creation of a select portion 
of the inhabitants who were to be governors of the 
rest; they were in fact always described by one 
general title, of inhabitants of the borough, burg- 
folk or burgesses a . In the Saxon laws and the 
Saxon Chronicle we read of the aldermen, who were 
royal officers in each borough, but their duties were 
entirely distinct from theirs who at present bear 
the name. The alderman seems rather to have 
been in the position of a senator, or judge, a legal 
functionary who presided over the gemote, rather 
than one who was called upon to exercise any cor- 
porate functions. Henry T. in fact, in his confir- 
mation of the laws of the Confessor, 1100, laid it 
down that one of the better men should preside 
over the whole hundred, and be called alderman, 
whose duty it was diligently to endeavour to pro- 
mote the laws of God and the rights of man. The 
burgesses, on the other hand, were the residents in 
the town ; they bore their share of the local bur- 

a Merewether and Stephens' Hist, of Boroughs, vol. i. p. 220. 



4 BURGAGE TENURE. 

dens, and paid scot and lot, and all such persons as 
did not contribute to these charges were excluded. 

It appears then that the town of Northampton 
belonged at this time (1086) to the crown, and 
that the burgesses or resident inhabitants held it 
as a borough, by what is commonly called burgage 
tenure, that is, by sockage, a conventional service, 
not of a military, but of a general and uniform 
nature, distinguished from knight service, which 
was occasional, and being in fact the same tenure 
as freehold or gavel kind, but in the present instance 
held by a small acknowledgment, paid in the shape 
of rent to the king as superior lord. Such as held 
immediately under him in right of his crown and 
dignity were tenants in chief {capite), which was 
the more honourable tenure of all, but at the same 
time, it subjected them to greater inconveniences 
and to more burdensome services than devolved 
upon the inferior tenants. 

From being in the royal demesne, which may 
serve to account for the origin of the privilege in 
the first instance, and from holding their town 
by burgage tenure, the burgesses of Hantone or 
Northampton paid £30. 10s. yearly to the sheriff, 
as the rent of the town, by way of acknowledging 
their own relation to the sovereign, and it was one 



FEE FARM. O 

of the sources from whence the national expen- 
diture was defrayed. Formerly many estates be- 
longing to the crown were let out or held as it is 
termed by fee farm, as well as particular burgage- 
tenements lying in the town. It must, however, be 
observed that, taken by itself, this did not con- 
stitute the peculiar characteristic of a borough, nor 
was it any proof of a corporation, since there were 
several places even in this country, such as Ape- 
thorpe b , King's Cliffe , Brigstock d , Thorp e , Silves- 
ton f , and Geddington g , paying similar rents into 
the hands of the sheriff, which shewed none of these 
features. There were it is true in the county three 
other boroughs h , but one of them, Peterborough, 
was not incorporated until 1st Hen. III. (1215), 
nor Brackley and Higham Perrars, until the middle 
of the sixteenth century. 

At the time we are now considering, it was the 

b Homines de Abethorpe, de firma villae suae, 

reddunt compotum xxxvu.jg e Homines de Torp lx. £ 

de firma villas suae, et de de firma de Torp. 

xxxvii. £ de eadem de anno f Homines de Selveston, red- 

praeterito; in thesauro libera- dunt compotum de xviii. £ 

verunt, et quieti sunt. de firma ejusdem manerii. 

c Homines de Clive reddunt g Homines de Geytinton, red- 

compotum de lx. £ de firma dunt compotum de xlvi. £ de 

de Clive. firma de Geytinton. — Mag. 

d Homines de Brikestok, Rot. Pip. 46 Hen. III. 

reddunt compotum de lx. £ h Madox Firma Burgi. 



b DUTIES OF THE SHERIFF. 

duty of the sheriff of each county to collect all 
crown rents, and regularly pay them into the ex- 
chequer, whilst a large amount of the royal ex- 
penses was also defrayed by the money which pass- 
ed through his hands. He was the king's farmer, 
or bailiff, his collector of rents and other revenue. 
When the royal treasure was to be conveyed from 
one place to another it was entrusted to his charge 1 . 
When fixed payments, such as alms {eleemosina 
constitutes) or annuities, were to be discharged, 
the sheriff attended to the matter; on some occa- 
sions he received special writs to provision the 
royal castles, to furnish wine, and the common 
necessaries of life, even clothing for the king and 
the royal family. The mandates addressed to him 
were of the most varied description. Take this in 
the 6th of John (1204), as one example; 'To the 
sheriff of Southampton, We order you to allow 
Thomas Esturmy, our valet, a scarlet robe, with a 
cloak of fine linen, and another robe of green or 
brown, and a saddle, and a pair of reins, and a cloak 
for wet weather, and a couch, and a pair of linen 
sheets, as he is to be made a knight V Take others 
more immediately connected with Northampton- 

i Rot. Claus. 15 John, p. k Rot. Claus. p. 3, and 

158, b. Genl. Introd. xl. 



DUTIES OF THE SHERIFF. 7 

shire. In tlie 6th of John, (1205,) the sheriff of 
Northamptonshire is ordered to find things neces- 
sary for the houses and walls at Silveston 1 ; in the 
16th of John, (1214,) to take care of eleven horses 
and their seven keepers till he hears further 111 ; in 
the 6th of Hen. III., (1221,) to take good bail for 
those suspected of murder; to see that the royal 
huntsman, with two horses, three men and sixteen 
dogs for running fallow deer, should be taken care 
of; and another huntsman with the same number 
of men and horses, with fifteen dogs for hunting 
stags 11 , should be provided for at the expense of 
forty shillings ; that the houses at Brigstock 
should be repaired , &c. There was in short 
scarcely any kind of business whatever, whe- 
ther important or trivial in its nature, but what 
fell under the sheriff's numerous duties. He was 
the local officer of justice, and disbursed money 
for executions and duels, and for conveying felons 
and approvers from place to place. Thus in the 
Pipe roll of 13 Henry II., (1167,) there is an entry 

1 Rot. Claus. 20. having dogs to hunt the fox 

" Ibid. 176. and hare. (Canes ad vulpem 

n Thus also in the Chan- et ieporem). — Rot Cancel. 

cellor's roll we find Richard 3 John. 

Basset rendering account of ° Rot. Claus. 4S2. 

five marcs for the licence of p Ibid. 495. 



8 EXCHEQUER PAYMENTS, 

of this kind for the cost of bringing two of the 
latter here from Oxford. 

No doubt their accounts were carefully rendered 
annually from the time of the Conqueror's survey 
up to the period when we first meet with them 
in the 31st of Henry I. (1130.) 

The money was weighed at the Exchequer, and 
the deficiency, however small, invariably entered 
on the accounts; thus in the 41st Hen. III.9, 
the purse of Northampton lacked 3^?., and as 
the revenue was paid into the exchequer, some- 
times by weight, and sometimes by tale, so were 
proper officers and utensils provided there for 
weighing, telling, assaying, and laying up the 
money. In the 26th Hen. II., (1180,) the sheriff 
of Northamptonshire was allowed upon his account 
what he had laid out in carriage of treasure from 
Northampton to Nottingham, by Wm. Malduit the 
chamberlain, and John Cumin, according to the 
king's court, five shillings; and in payment to 
Gilbert the fusor, or melter, from the Nativity of 
the blessed Yirgin to the octaves of St. Michael, 
ten shillings, and for charcoal and things necessary 
for making the examination, four shillings and 

q Mag. Rot. Pip. 41 Hen. III. 



GREAT ROLLS OF THE PIPE. 9 

seven pence, by the same writ 1 *. So carefully was 
the money assayed that the smallest deficiency 
was entered on the accounts s , Unfortunately after 
the compilation of the great survey, until this 
exact time, there is nothing preserved to us which 
is at all analogous in character. But in this year 
of Henry the Eirst's reign, we come to a class of 
documents of the most important kind, generally 
known by the name of the Great Rolls of the Ex- 
chequer, or more commonly under that of the 
Great Rolls of the Pipe. They are such extremely 
valuable documents for all historical, legal, or anti- 
quarian purposes, that I should briefly state the 
nature of their contents, more especially as we shall 
be indebted to them for all our information re- 
specting the town, until its internal government 
became more fully matured and developed. The 
Pipe rolls contain a series of entries made by the 
king's officers relating to the receipt and expendi- 

r In carriagio thesauri a carbonibus et necessariis ad 

Norhantona usque ad Not- examinationesfaciendas, iiij. s. 

ingeham,perWillelmvm Mai- et vij. d. per idem breve. — 

duitCamerarium et Johannem Mag. Rot. Pip. 26 Hen. II., 

Cumin, v. s. per idem breve ; Rot. 6, a. and b. 
et liberacione Gilberti Fusoris s Bursa de Northamton lacat 

a Nativitate B. Mariae usque iij.d. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 41 Hen. 

ad octabas S. Michaelis, x. s. III. Rot. 27. 
per idem breve Regis ; et pro 



10 NATURE OF EXCHEQUER ROLLS. 

ture of the royal revenue, as it was collected or 
disbursed either by the sheriffs or the king's other 
ministers appointed for the purpose. If the king 
required money very urgently, he however often 
addressed to them special writs, and one of this 
kind was sent in the 39th Hen. III. to the sheriff 
of Northamptonshire, commanding him to pay 
forthwith into the exchequer the debts mentioned 
therein, or else the king would so chastise him, as 
to make him an example to all the king's other 
bailiffs*. The various entries relating to each 
county are written on separate rolls with the name 
of each at the back, that is to say, strictly speak- 
ing, endorsed ; the receipts come first on the list, 
and then the different outlays which had been 
authorised by the crown. Occasionally the parti- 
culars belonging to individual counties fill several 

1 Rex Vicecomiti Norham- praecipimus, quod statim visis 
ton ; certe si ad te et tua nos litteris, dictum Tallagium, una 
graviter caperemus, non debe- cum £42. 13s. 4d. quos no- 
res mirari, pro eo quod quasi bis debes de pluribus debitis, 
contempnendo nostrum pre- ad Scaccarium nostrum apud 
ceptum, tallagium Burgi nos- Westmonasterium statim mit- 
tri de Norhamton, quod solvi tas; alioquin sic te castigabi- 
debuisset a die Paschae prox- mus,quod poena tua aliis Bal- 
ime praeterito in unum men- livis nostris dabitur in exem- 
sem, nondum est nobis solu- plum. — (Trin. Commun. 39 
turn; igitur ne in te manus Hen. III. Rot. 13. a. apud 
gravaminis extendamus ; tibi Madox, 244.) 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF PIPE EOLLS. 11 

membranes, some of which are written on both 
sides, and the top of all the rotulets being united 
together, they form what may literally be called, 
without any reference to their contents, the Great 
Roll of the Pipe. Six detached rolls, namely, 31st 
Hen. I., (1130, 1181,) the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, of 
Hen. II., (1155—1158,) the 1st Bic. L, (1189, 
1190,) and the 3rd of John, (1201, 1202,) have 
been printed ; and there still remains of this de- 
scription of record, invaluable to those who desire 
to become acquainted with local, personal, or na- 
tional history, a series wanting only two rolls to 
make it complete, (1st Hen. III., and 7th Hen. IV.,) 
beginning at the 31st Hen. I., in the year 1130, 
and coining down to the present day. 

In the earliest of these records we find that 
Robert Revel, who was the king's farmer in 1130, 
rendered an account of the farm of the borough. 
He paid into the exchequer £90. 14s. 3d. ; he had 
disbursed in fixed payments £8. 2s. Id. ; in fixed 
alms to the monks of Northampton twenty shillings, 
and to the same monks 3s. &d. for their land which 
the king took within his castle; being in all ex- 
actly a hundred pounds u ; so that within the fifty 

* Pipe roll 134. Mag. Rot. p. 11. Madox'Hist. Excheq. 
Pip, 31 Hen. I. Toll cause, 248. 



12 ILLUSTRATIONS OF PIPE ROLLS. 

years which intervened between the Conqueror's 
survey and this time, the fee farm of the town had 
increased from £30. 10s. to £100, as just stated. 

The payments varied according to circumstances, 
or as the king's writ directed. Some of them were 
fixed disbursements from the fee farm, such as those 
made to the monks and the knights templars, or 
in alms; others were casual, like those made in 
repairing the castle ; in wages to the soldiers ; to 
John, chaplain to the queen of Spain, who dwelt in 
the schools of Northampton for three weeks ; for 
conveying Henry the Second's treasure from Hunt- 
ingdon to Northampton*; for providing cloth and 
garments for the royal servants y; or for the taking 

x Et in liberacione Johan- (1176.) 
nis Clerici A. Reginae Hys- y Et pro pellura empta ad 
patriae qui moratur in scolis opus Regis in eadem villa con - 
apud Norhampton vi. sol. de tra festum natalis Domine an- 
iii. septimanis per breve Re- no xlviii. xviii. li. iii. s. et iiii. 
gis. Et Hugone Salnario xii. d. per breve Regis. Et in 
sol. pro armaturis quos duxit garderoba Regis Nicholas de 
de Huntedon a Northampton Leukenorcustodiejusdemgar- 
per breve Regis. Et pro du- derobae Ixix.li. xl. s. x. d. per 
cendo thesauro ad Wudest et breve Regis. Et pro xxviii 
ad Gaitenton, et ad London vii. doliis cerevisiae cc et lxviii pi- 
sol, per Wallerannum et Odo- theris, ccc et lx ciphis, captis 
nem de Falesia. Et pro faci- ad opus Regis xv. li. ix. s. ii. d. 
enda justitia de Willielmo de per breve Regis. Et pro pel- 
Hetford xv. d. Et quietus est. lura capta ad opus ejusdem in 
— Mag. Rot. Pip. 2 Hen. II. nundinis Stanfordiae per Ro- 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF PIPE ROLLS. 



13 



the king's himtins: from Brisrstock to Canterbury 2 . 
Then we also find as early as the 7th Hen. II. , 
(1160,) a payment made from the moneyers to the 
sheriff, of 28 marcs, and in the 2Sth of the same 
reign, (1182,) this became a regular source of 
revenue to the crown of sixty shillings a year for a 
century downwards. 



bertum de Linton et hugonem 
de Turri tunc emptores gar- 
derobae Regis Ixxiiii. s. per 
breve Regis. Et pro pellura 
empta ad opus ejusdem in 
nundinis Northantonae per 
Ric. de Ewall et dictum Hu- 
gonem xx. li. iiij. s. vi. d. per 
breve Regis. Et in eadem 
garderoba eidem Xicholao iiij. 
xv. li. xii. s. viij. d. per breve 
Regis. Et pro cc et iv pari- 
bus sotularium emptis ad man- 
datum Regis et Reginae ad 
opus pauperum anno 4°. iiij. 
li. xviij. s. x. d. obolus per ij 
brevia Regis. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 
50 Hen. IIL 

This entry in the following 
year supplies us with another 
illustration, and also with the 
value of other articles at this 
period. 

Et Petro de Bleyne Merca- 
tori Wasconensi pro iii. doliis 
vini ab eo captis apud Kenill- 
wurth ad opus Regis xv. li. 



per breve Regis. Et Ricardo 
de Ewell et Hugoni de Turry 
emptoribus garderobae Regis 
ad emptiones ejusdem garde- 
robae factae in nundinis Xor- 
thantonae xlviii. Et Barth. le 
Espicer et Ernaldo de la Ro- 
kele pro duobus doliis vini ab 
eis captis ad opus Regis apud 
Xorthantonam x. li. &c. &c. 
—Mag. Rot. Pip. 51 Hen. III. 
z Et in operacione camini 
et domorum Regis de Xor- 
hampton vii. lib. per breve 
Regis et per visum Henrici 
filii Thiardi et Phillippi filii 
Jordani. Et pro pannis atque 
penulis ad opus servientium 
Regis vi.lib. xvii. sol. et vi. d. 
per breve Regis. Et pro 
ducenda venacione Regis de 
Brigstock usque ad Cantua- 
riam xi. sol. per breve Regis. 
Et in operacione Regis de Sel- 
vistona. xvi. sol. per breve Re- 
gis. Et quietus est. — Mag. 
Rot. Pip. 25 Hen. II. (1179.) 



14 FEE FARM. 

This farming of the county was so profitable a 
thing, that the nobility began to bid against each 
other for the office. The bishop of Ely offered for 
the fee farm of York, Lincoln, and Northampton, 
1500 marcs in hand, and a hundred increase 
yearly upon the usual farm of each county; but 
Geoffrey Plantagenet, the monarch's illegitimate 
son by fair Rosamond, having offered the same 
annual increment, and 3000 marcs for the sherifdom 
of Yorkshire alone, the king accepted his tender a . 
From this it is very evident that the yearly rent of 
a hundred pounds for the fee farm was below its 
real value, and we learn moreover from the Pipe 
rolls, that in the 31st Hen. IL, (1185,) the bur- 
gesses of Northampton suffered a fine of 200 
marcs to hold their town in capite b . 

This is the first important change observable in 
the tenure. 

The town was still held in free socage, that is, 
exempted from any acknowledgment or service to 
the crown except in money. The burgesses had it 
now immediately from the king, and no longer paid 
their rent through the sheriffs. Moreover there 

a Madox Excheq. 635. in capite de Rege. Inthesauro 

b Burgenses de Norhant. c. marcas. Etdebentc. marcas. 

reddunt compotum de cc. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 31 Hen. II. 

marcas, pro habenda villa sua 



TOWN FARMED BY THE BURGESSES. 15 

existed such general dissatisfaction in consequence 
of the severity with which these officers performed 
their functions, so many complaints were raised 
against their quartering a large retinue of followers 
upon the people, and abusing the hospitality of re- 
ligious houses, that Henry II. displaced several, 
and forfeited them for their misdemeanors. These 
two circumstances will at once explain the reasons 
which induced the burgesses to undergo the fine 
just mentioned, and farm the town for their own 
profit ; since by so doing they both effected a pecu- 
niary saving, and at the same time became freed from 
an oppressive jurisdiction. In fact the arbitrary con- 
duct of the sheriffs was one cause of similar immu- 
nities being now granted to other towns, whilst the 
Great Charter of John, the statute of Westminster 
the first, (3rd Edw. I.,) as well as the articles upon 
the former, passed in the 29th Edw. I., shewed 
that the evil existed for some time afterwards, and 
required direct legislative interference before it could 
be suppressed. We may however observe that in 
consequence of the burgesses now holding their fee 
farm as tenants in capite, they became liable to 
regular assessment for aids, and although it is true 
they had paid them on two previous occasions, it 
was only doing as other towns did under the same 



16 



ASSESSMENT FOR AIDS. 



circumstances, one of which occasions being to 
make provision for Henry II. marrying his daughter 
Matilda to the duke of Saxony, from whom descends 
the present house of Brunswick, this payment must 
be regarded rather as a voluntary contribution 
(donum) arising out of the emergency, than as a 
regular annual tax c . And in confirmation of this 
we see that although the burgesses made a dona- 
tion of forty marcs in the 2nd Hen. II., they did 
not offer any during the four succeeding years d . 

Hen. II. 



c MadoxExcheq.417,418. 

d Et idem Robertas filius 
Sawini reddat compotum de 
xl. marcis de Dono Civitatis 
Norhantonae. In thesauro li- 
beravit. Et quietus est. — Mag. 
Rot. Pip. 2 Hen. II. 

Et idem reddat compotum 
de cc. marcis de dono Burgi 
de Norhantona.— Mag. Rot. 
Pip. 5 Hen. II. 

Idem (Robertus filius Sa- 
wini) reddat compotum de 
xxvi. li. et vi. sol. et viii. d. de 
dono Civitatis. — Mag. Rot. 
Pip. 6 Hen. II. 

Robertus filius Sewini red- 
dat compotum de c. li. de 
firma de Norbamtona. Idem 
reddat compotum de cc. marcis 
de auxilio Burgi de Norham- 
tona ad maritandam filiam 
Regis Mag. Rot. Pip. 14 



Idem reddat compotum de 
quater xx. li. et xxxiii. s. et 
iiij.d. de auxilio Burgi de Nor- 
hantona ad maritandam Matil- 
dam filiam Regis.- — Mag. Rot. 
Pip. 15 Hen. II. 

Idem Vicecomes reddat com- 
potum de ix. li. et xii. s. de 
auxilio Burgi de Norhantona 
ad maritandam filiam Regis. 
—Mag. Rot. Pip. 16 Hen. II. 

Idem Vicecomes debet vi. H. 
et xiii. s. et iiij. d. de auxilio 
ad maritandam filiam Regis. 
—Mag. Rot. Pip. 17 Hen. II.. 

Et idem [Robertus filius 
Sawini] reddat compotum de 
c. et lx. marcas de dono de 
Norhant. in thesauro libera- 
tur in ii. talliagiis. — Mag. Rot. 
Pip. 7 Hen. II. 



FINES, 17 

The system of providing for the royal expendi- 
ture by means of fines being found so easy a mode 
of raising money, it was very soon applied in an 
almost innumerable variety of ways. Did a suitor 
wish to obtain ready access to the king's ear, or 
any office in the state, or to have seisin of his 
land ? it was readily done by paying a fine. Did he 
wish justice expedited, or personal protection, or 
a delay of judgment ? payment of a fine purchased 
the favour. Did he desire to pursue any particular 
trade or calling, or to marry, or to be discharged 
from prison ? a fine gained him the wished-for in- 
dulgence. And so also when communities, or aggre- 
gate bodies sought for any extension of their privi- 
leges, the same mode of proceeding procured an 
answer agreeable to their petition e . 

The urgent necessities of Eichard I. speedily led 
him to adopt these methods for increasing the ac- 
cumulated wealth of his father. Immediately in fact 
that he came to the throne, though he is stated to 
have found £900,000, besides jewels, in the royal 
coffers, he began to sell the crown lands, to grant 

e For instance, many fines to buy and sell dyed cloth, as 

related to trade or merchan- they had been accustomed to 

dise; thus among other ex- do in the time of King 

amples the men of Northamp- Henry. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 4 

ton rendered an account often John, Hot. ii. 6. 
pounds that they might he able 



18 THE CRUSADES. 

immunities, exemptions, privileges, and charters, 
on such terms as he thought proper, for the sake 
of raising money for a crusade. It is well known 
that his expedition to the Holy Land, and his sub- 
sequent ransom from captivity, required immense 
sums, which were levied under every form and pre- 
tence that ingenuity or tyranny could suggest. The 
Jews however were despoiled of their wealth with- 
out the formal consolation of a legal process, and 
they had in other respects still stronger reasons fo* 
complaints It must not however be concealed that 
the feeling of the nation was completely identified 
with that of the king in the object of his present 
enterprise. All classes partook in an equal degree 
of the prevailing phrenzy to chastise the infidels, 
who had so long insulted or cruelly treated 
the Christian pilgrims to the holy sepulchre ; and 
when the English monarch was detained in capti- 
vity, notwithstanding the exactions he had made 
from his subjects to accomplish his heroic enter- 
prise, sincere and universal grief was expressed at 
his fate. Yet weighing in our minds at the present 
day the motives of this great religious movement, 

f In the new edition of the the sheriff of Northampton- 

Foedera is a writ printed from shire to take all the property 

the Patent rolls, (45 Hen. III. of the Jews into their hands 

1261,) ordering amongstothers for the king, vol. i. p. 407. 



ARBITRARY CONDUCT OF RICHARD. 19 

much doubt must arise as to its justice. That a 
unity of spirit pervaded all Europe there can be 
no doubt, but its being the universal passion of 
Christendom, unregulated as it was in so many re- 
spects, does not prove that it originated in those 
maxims of international equity which ought to be 
based on religious toleration. Nor indeed must it 
be forgotten that the sympathy of his own subjects 
was excited by a monarch, who as a ruler was but 
little worthy of their affection ; for in despite of that 
lofty courage and magnanimity, qualities which in 
the present example will always claim recognition, 
and carry their peculiar recommendation to enthu- 
siastic and imaginative minds, to all the admirers 
of fiction and romance and poetry, the dishonour- 
able modes he adopted to retrieve his impoverished 
finances, shew too clearly that the code of chivalry 
was far from being identified in his bosom with 
that of honesty and justice. The alienations he 
had granted before his departure were reversed in- 
stantly he returned home. All the patents and 
commissions he had executed were to be renewed 
by passing with a fine under a fresh seal, and even 
justs and tournaments, those training schools of 
daring and gallantry of which he may be said to 
be in great measure the founder, were forbidden, 



20 FIRST ENFRANCHISEMENT OF MIND 

solely that he might receive a fine from the knights 
or nobility, in proportion to their rank, as they 
entered the barriers. 

Yet amid all the false maxims of honour and 
morality which were in vogue, amid the unnatural 
union subsisting betwixt religious and military zeal, 
we may perceive the germ of those noble habits of 
mind which still retain a striking effect upon the 
national character, and which have imparted from 
a wild and uncontrolled state of manners much of 
the grace and dignity belonging to modern society. 
We may see, moreover, how the spirit of chivalry, 
contradictory as it may be in itself, helped to keep 
alive national prowess at home, to furnish a supply 
of recruits to defend the country in times of danger, 
and when the power of the nobles declined, who 
held their lands by bringing these soldiers into the 
field, we may observe how the Commons of England 
acquired strength and influence from their ruin. 
But these, after all, are the least valuable reflections 
that will present themselves, since the crusades gave 
the first moral impulse towards the enfranchise- 
ment of the human mind, whilst the oppressive 
government of Richard I., swayed entirely by the 
general movement in their behalf, began to create 
new interests in the kingdom, which tended in 



BROUGHT ON BY THE CEUSADES. 21 

turn to balance the power of the great proprietors, 
tenants in capite, as well as to produce those im- 
portant changes by which the constitution of the 
country was placed on the foundation where it now 
rests. And thus also shall we learn how, as in 
the present instance, the burgesses of large towns 
became more independent, began to acquire muni- 
cipal jurisdiction under their own officers, and to 
possess increased influence in the state. 

Cceur de Lion ascended the throne on the 3rd of 
September, 1 189. On the 14th of the same month 
he held a great council at the abbey of Pipwell, in 
this county, now destroyed. It was attended by a 
numerous assemblage of ecclesiastics : the whole of 
the English and Irish bishops were present, all the 
abbots and priors throughout England, as well as a 
large number of the laity s. The main object of 

s There had been in the result of which was that the 
reign of Will. II., (11th Mar. clergy renounced their obedi- 
1094,) a very large concourse ence to the primate. Eadmer, 
of the nobility and ecclesi- who was attached to the arch- 
astics of the realm assembled bishop, in his account of what 
at Rockingham, in the imme- took place on this occasion, 
diate neighbourhood, when a mentions a knight, who in the 
council was held on Sunday, in name of the people there pre- 
the church, contiguous to the sent encouraged the traitor- 
castle, to determine the ques- ous prelate in his resistance, 
tion whether Anselm should Eadmeri Historia Novorumj 
swear obedience to the pope p. 26, &c. 
without the king's consent, the 



22 COUNCIL AT PIPWELL. 

this extraordinary meeting was to make arrange- 
ments respecting a crusade. We have already ob- 
served what modes were adopted to raise the neces- 
sary funds for this expedition, and the not very 
distant situation of Northampton from the seat of 
these deliberations might have suggested to the 
king's mind, had there existed no other circum- 
stances to remind him of the importance of the 
place itself, that the town might help him to increase 
the sums he needed. This however is pure con- 
jecture, since we know not in short how long the 
council sat, or in truth but very little of its pro- 
ceedings. That Bichard I. was thoroughly devoted 
to business, energetic beyond most sovereigns who 
have sat on the throne, and determined to accom- 
plish the object of his ambition, there cannot be the 
least doubt. What length of time he stayed at the 
abbey of Pipwell, it is now impossible to tell, for 
we cannot trace the daily journeys of the prince in 
this reign so satisfactorily as in the following ones, 
the records of the period being generally lost, and 
all historical information very meagre. We hear 
no more of the king until the month of November 
when we find him still occupied in taking active 
measures respecting the expedition, granting on the 
first of the month in London a charter to the town 



FIRST CHARTER. 23 

of Shrewsbury, and on the fourteenth issuing from 
Bury St. Edmunds the one before us, to the bur- 
gesses of Northampton. The town had previously 
enjoyed one from Henry II., that is now lost h , but 
of which this appears to be a confirmation. 

For the reasons already assigned, Richard I. ex- 
tended similar favours to other places, to Colchester, 
Winchester, and Lincoln. These various charters 
however are not all equally full, since that given to 
Shrewsbury, for instance, contains fewer immunities 
and concessions than the others, and it may be ob- 
served in passing, that the burgesses there paid 
proportionably less for the royal consideration. The 
general tenor of any one of these instruments will 
be found upon comparison to agree with the rest. 
It may also further be remarked that whilst tracing 
the origin and progress of any borough of im- 
portance, we are in fact marking the history of 
municipal institutions generally, and stretching our 
enquiries over a large portion of English jurispru- 
dence. 

h It is most likely that the see that the latter were to hold 

charter inserted in the new edi- the privileges belonging to the 

tion of Rymer, (vol. i. p. 11,) former. This charter, which 

and granted to the citizens of has been assigned to the reign 

London, was much the same of Hen. I., is very similar to 

as the one given to the bur- that granted to Northampton 

gesses of Northampton, as we by Richard the First. 



24 FIRST CHARTER. 

As this charter of Cceur de Lion is both the basis 
of those given in succeeding years, and is included 
in subsequent grants to the burgesses, it will be 
desirable to examine its various clauses rather 
closely. By adopting this method we shall be the 
better prepared to understand as we go on step by 
step, the actual progress that is being made from a 
state of servitude, feudal tyranny, and barbarism, to 
one of increased liberty and civilization. For the 
same reason it will be of importance to ascertain 
the meaning, and to deduce constitutional or prac- 
tical conclusions from these documents, but the 
simple analysis will furnish the best moral comment 
that can be made upon their contents. 

% Eicardus Dei gratia Rex Anglia3 Dux Norman- 
nise Aquitanise comes Andegavensis Archiepiscopis 
Episcopis Abbatibus Comitibus Baronibus Justiciis 
Vicecomitibus et omnibus ministris et fidelibus suis 
Prancise et Anglise Salutem. Sciatis nos concessisse 
Burgensibus nostris de Norhanton quod nullus 
eorum placitetur extra muros Burgi Norhant. de 
nullo placito praeter placita de tenuris exterioribus 
exceptis monetariis et ministris nostris. Concessimus 
autem quietanciam murdri infra Burgum et in Por- 
soka et qtiod nullus eorum faciat duellum et quod 
de placito ad Coronam pertinentibus se possint dis- 



FIRST CHARTER. 25 

coronare secundum consuetudinein Civium Civitatia 
Londonice et quod infra muros Burgi ilJius nemo 
capiat hospitium per vim ullum pro liberacione 
marescalli. Hos autem eis concessimus quod omnes 
Burgenses Xorhant. sint quieti de theloneo et leste- 
gio per totam Angliam et per portas maris. Et 
quod nullus de summa pecunise judicetur nisi secun- 
dum legem quern habent Gives nostri Londinenses. 
Et quod in Burgo illo in nullo placito sit meskin- 
ninga et quod hustings semel tantum in ebdomada 
teneatur, et quod terras suas et tenuras et vadia sua 
et debita sua omnia juste habeant quicunque eis de- 
beat. Et de terris suis et tenuris quse infra Burgum 
sunt rectum eis teneatur secundum consuetudinem 
Burgi, et de omnibus debitis suis quse accommodata 
fuerunt apud Norliant. et de vadiis ibidem factis 
placita apud jSTorhant. teneantur. Et siquis in tota 
Anglia theloneum vel consuetudinem ab hominibus 
Ts T orliant. ceperit postquam ipse a recto defecerit 
Propositus ISTorhant. namium inde apud Norhant. 
capiat. Insuper et ad emendacionem illius Burgi 
eis concessimus quod sint quieti de Bradtol et de 
Childwete et de Hieresgive 1 et de Scot tale ita quod 
Propositus Norhant. aut aliquis alius BalliMis; 

1 Bradtol, Gildwite and Yeresgeve in the charter of 11! 
Hen. HI. 



26 FIRST CHARTER. 

Scottale non faciat. Has predictas consuetudines 
eis concessimus et oinnes alias libertates et liberas 
consuetudines quas habuerunt aut habent Cives 
nostri Londinenses, quum quin meliores aut libe- 
riores habuerunt secundum libertates Londinenses 
et leges Burgi Norhant. Quare volumus et firmi- 
ter precipimus quod ipsi et heredes eorutn liabeant 
omnia prsedicta, heredetarie liabeant et teneant de 
nobis et heredibus nostris reddendo per annum cen- 
tum et viginti libras numero de villa Norhant. cum 
omnibus pertinentiis suis ad Scaccarium nostrum 
in termino Sancti Micliaelis per manum propositi 
Norhant. et Burgenses Norhant. faciant propositum 
quern voluerint de se per annum sicut sit idoneus 
nobis et eis. Teste Hugone Dunelmensi ; Johanne 
Norwicensi: Huberto Sarum: Episcopis. Comite 
Albermarle : Comite Willelmo de Arundel : Comite 
Bicardo de Clara: Comite Hamelin de Warenne. 
Waltero filio Roberti. Datum apud Sanctum Ed- 
mundum xviii. die Novembris per manum Willelmi 
Electi — Elyensis Cancellarii nostri Begni nostri 
anno primo. 

^f On the dorse ; ista carta allocata per Johannem 
Peche maiorem Civitatis Londonise & Aldermanum 
ejusdem civitatis et intratur in camera Gyhalde 
ejusdem civitatis videlicet in libro cum littera 



FIRST CHARTER. 27 

G. folio centesimo. Willelmo de Holbeche & 
Jacobo de Tame tunc temporis vicecomitibus 
Londonise. 

This charter of 1st Eichard L, (1189,) de- 
clares, 

1. That the burgesses should not be compelled to 
plead on any plea without the walls of the borough, 
except pleas of outholdings, unless they were the 
moneyers and ministers : w r hich was a saving of 
considerable expense to all suitors, and productive 
of more advantages than would immediately seem 
to arise out of such a license, as we shall shortly 
see from subsequent events that transpired. 

2. That they should have acquittance of murder 
within the borough and in portsoken. That is, in 
case a person should be murdered within the town, 
suburbs, or liberties, they should be free from 
amerciament; the laws of Canute having fixed a 
fine of forty marcs upon every town where such 
offences were committed. 

3. That none should make duel. That is, be 
compelled to establish his own innocence in a 
criminal, or his rights in a civil cause by this per- 
sonal hazard, Here again was a considerable ad- 
vantage obtained, as all questions in the previous 
reign, whether pleas concerning freehold, writs of 



28 ANALYSIS OF THE 

right, warranty of land, or of goods sold, debts 
upon mortgage or promise, the validity of charters, 
the manumission of villeins, and all questions of 
service, might have been referred to this mode of 
trial k . 

4. That of pleas appertaining to the crown 
they may justify according to the custom of the 
citizens of London : which was, that a man could 
discharge himself by his oath within the walls of 
the city. 

5. That no one could take hostellage (lodging) 
by force, or be compelled to entertain one of the 
king's household. 

6. That they should be free from toll and las- 
tage ; that is, toll and customs throughout all 
England; that no one should be adjudged of 
amerciaments of money, but according to the 
law of London, which fixed them at a certain 
sum. 

7. That there be no plea miskenning; that is, 
that no one should be called into law unjustly. 
That the hustings, or supreme court of the town, 
should be held only once in the week. 

► 8. That they justly have all their holdings and 
lands, to be kept according to the custom of the 

k Reeve, i. 83, 



FIRST CHARTER. 29 

borough, and that all pleas concerning their debts 
and pledges should be held at Northampton. 

9. That all tolls unjustly taken from the bur- 
gesses in other places, if not redressed there, the 
provost, {propositus,) has power to do justice within 
the town of Northampton. 

10. That for the amendment of the town 
the inhabitants be quit of brudtol, childwete, 
hieresgive, and scottale. These terms involve 
some difficulty for exact interpretation, as they 
were evidently borrowed from some of the ancient 
Saxon laws, and their exact meaning was very soon 
lost. 

11. That all these privileges should be held as 
freely and fully as the citizens of London held 
theirs, and the like customs and privileges be 
shared by both; that they should be held here- 
ditarily by them and their heirs, rendering yearly 
to the exchequer at the term of St. Michael by 
number, (numero,) that is, by tally, or tale, in the 
coin of the realm, £120, by the hands of the pro- 
vost of Northampton : and lastly, 

12. That the burgesses should make a provost 
of themselves, whomsoever they selected as proper 
for themselves and the crown. This power of being 
permitted to choose its own magistrates has been 



30 



EFFECTS OF THE 



usually accounted by every community one of the 
first advances to freedom. The privilege of elect- 
ing its own magistrates is the earliest boon granted 
to a new settlement, and so highly was it esteemed 
by the modern Greeks, that in 1810 the Hydriotes 
purchased it from the Sublime Porte for a consider- 
able sum. It is an acquisition implying increased 
confidence on the one hand, and enlarged powers 
on the other, though not political independence. 

The period when this charter was granted has 
been called by several statutes, and by the common 
law of England, the time of prescription, (particu- 
larly in the statute de Quo Warranto , 18th Edw. 
I., 1289; vid. Stat, of the Eealm, vol. i. p. 107,) 
or the time of legal memory : therefore all rights 
which can be established at this period, must be 
either built upon something previously granted, of 
which there was existing tradition, or else upon 
what now for the first time had its existence. What 
is the inference we are to draw from this legal 
argument ? We may see that as there is not any 
mention of a corporation made in the grant, or 
any allusion to one antecedently, or any notice 
whatever of corporate rights, there could not have 
been such things in existence at this precise period. 
We may further perceive that it was the resident 



FIRST CHARTER. 31 

inhabitants, the men who should not be compelled 
to plead without the walls, who constituted the 
burgesses; these men were authorized to choose 
their own magistrate, and as soon as he was 
elected, the assembly dissolved itself, leaving to the 
officer on whom their suffrages had been bestowed, 
the uncontrolled management of their affairs for 
the rest of the year. He was the interpreter of the 
borough charter, and the organ of local legis- 
lation. And what effect or influence was wrought 
upon the people by this judicial and commercial 
code ? It tended to carry them by degrees from a 
state of internal disorganization and civic disunion, 
into one of social alliance and confederacy; it en- 
couraged them in all their struggles against the 
difficulties of practical life, taught them to acquire 
confidence in their own industrial exertions, and if 
they were still too modest, or too much depressed 
to think of the possibility of obtaining any honours 
beyond their own walls, it bid them aspire to the 
distinction of being selected by their townsmen for 
chief magistrate. 

Five years after Richard had confirmed his fa- 
ther's charter, an alteration took place in the 
manner by which the fee farm was to be paid, as 
we find from the Pipe rolls, that it was not dis- 



32 PILEPOSITI. 

charged by the reeve, but by Adam de Gurnai, 
and Boger the son of Peter, who are called Pro- 
positi, or provosts 1 . It has been conjectured, that 
whilst the title of reeve was the Saxon name for 
the chief municipal officer of the borough, it had 
its correspondent synonymes in Norman-French, in 
the words prevot, maire, and bailli, and that con- 
sequently all these terms having the same signifi- 
cation, they were used indiscriminately. But such 
a supposition implies a very imperfect knowledge 
of etymology, and is by no means agreeable to the 
truth. For it is quite certain that the Propositi 
just mentioned were merely the fermers of the 
town, since the burgesses had suffered a fine of 
£100. a year later, and another of £30. two years 
after the charter was confirmed, to farm the borough 

1 Robertas Revellus red- potumdeauxilio burgi deNor- 

dat compotum de firma Burgi hamtona. In thesauro viij.li. 

de Norhamtona: in thesauro et iiij.s. Et in pardona per 

quater xx. et x. li. et xiiii. s. breve Regis Monachis de 

et iii. d. et in liberacionibus Norhamtona xxxxiiij. s. Wil- 

constitutis viii. 1. et ii. s. et lielmo de Aleini Britoni ij.s. 

i. d. ; et in elemosinis consti- — Mag. Rot. Pip. 5 Stephen, 
tutis Monachis de Norham- Adamde GurnaietRogerus 

tona xx. s., et eisdem Mona- filius Petri propositi de Nor- 

chis iii. s. et viii. d. pro terra hantona reddunt compotum de 

sua quam Rex cepit infra cas- c. et xx. li. de firma Burgi de 

tellum suum ; et quietus est ; Norhanton. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 

et idem Robertus reddat com- 5 Ric. I, Rot. 7. b. 



FEE FARM PAID BY THE PROPOSITI. S3 

themselves™, and were answerable for the fee farm 
in the 10th of John. 



m Burgenses de Norhantona 
reddunt compotum de c. li. pro 
habenda villa sua adfirmam et 
pro libertatibus suis habendis. 
In thesauro lxx. II., et debent 
xxx.li. Radulphus de Buseville 
et Jobannes films Nigelli red- 
dunt compotum de c. et xx. li. 
numerodefirmaBurgi. — -Mag. 
Rot. Pip. 2Ric.L 

Burgenses de Norhantona 
reddunt compotum de xxx. li. 
pro babenda villa sua ad fir- 
mam et pro libertatibus suis 
habendis ; in thesauro libera- 
tur, et quieti sunt — Mag. Rot. 
Pip. 3 Ric. I. 

Henricus filii Hugonis et 
Simon de Bedeford reddant 
compotum de c. et xx. li. de 
firma Burgi de Norhantona. 
In thesauro c. et xvij. li. et 
vi. s. et viii. d. numero. Et in 
elemosinis constitutis Militi- 
bus de Templo 1. marca. Et 
Roberto filio Hugonis filii 
Sewin xx. s. in prato de Chin- 
geshala. Et quieti sunt. — 
Mag. Rot. Pip. 4 Ric. I. 

Richeras Vinitor et Tom as 
le Bacheler reddunt compo- 
tum de c. et xx. li. numero de 
firma Burgi de Norhantona. 
In thesauro c. et xvii. li. et 



vi.s. et viij. d. numero. — Mag. 
Rot. Pip. 6 Ric. I. 

Tedbaldus films Rogeri et 
Willielmus Passelewe praepo- 
siti de Norhantona reddunt 
compotum de c. et xx.li. nu- 
mero de firma Burgi de Nor- 
hantona. In thesauro c. et 
xvij.li. et vi. s. et viij. d. nu- 
mero. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 7 Ric. I. 

Simon de Pateshil reddat 
compotum de firma de Nor- 
hantescire. Burgenses de Nor- 
hantona debent de remanenti 
firmse villae de Norhantona de 
anno preterite. Idem reddant 
compotum de c. et xx. numero, 
scilicet Adam de Gurnai et 
Henricus filius Conani pro eis 
de firma Burgi de Norhanton 
de hoc anno. In thesauro c. 
et xvij. li. et vj. s. et viij. d. 
numero. Etin elemosinis con- 
stitutis Militibus de Templo 
1. marca. Et Monachis ejus- 
dem vtilae xx. s. Et debent 
xx. s.— Mag. Rot. Pip. 8 Ric. I. 

The different computations 
of money in the survey are 
by the libra or pound, the 
mark, the ora, the shilling, 
penny, &c. The librae ad 
pensum, or pondus, formed 
the payment when the coins 



34 JOHN GRANTS A 

"Within the first year after John commenced his 
reign, he began to grant very profusely new 
charters, and confirmations of old ones, to such 
places as had obtained them from his brother or 
his ancestors. The rolls on which they are entered 
are unfortunately very imperfect, six years of his 
troublesome reign furnishing none of these im- 
portant records. The municipal archives of the 
borough only possess a paper transcript of the 
document we shall next examine, but the original 
enrolment is among the charters at the Tower, 
and has been printed in the volume of these in- 
struments published under the authority of the 
record commissioners 11 . 



offered at the exchequer were were made, one by tale, the 

defective in fineness as well other blanch. Robertus films 

as weight. On this occasion Servini reddat compotum de 

the receivers at the exchequer c. et v. s. in bianco de veteri 

either melted a sample of the firma de Norhantescire. Idem 

money paid, or received six- vicecomes reddat compotum 

pence or a shilling over every de c.li. numero de firma Burgi 

twenty in lieu of actual com- de Norhantona. — Mag. Rot. 

bustion. The money so melted Pip. 18 Hen. II. 

was said to be blanched. The This difference betwixt the 

ora was valued at twenty pence. county and the borough in the 

(See Introd. to Domesday, li. mode of payment occurs on 

Hi. liii.) The usual payments other occasions. — Mag. Rot 

for the fee-farm were by tale, Pip. 32, 33, 34 Hen. II. 

(numero.) In the 18th year n Rot. Chart, pp. 45, 46. 
of Hen. II., two payments 



charter to northampton. 35 

^[ Charter of John* 

It commences by reciting the one that has been 
just examined, speaks of the burgesses of North- 
ampton and the citizens of London as being equally 
governed by the laws granted by his father, and 
then goes on to declare that the burgesses shall 
make a reeve (propositus) from among themselves, 
whom they will; in this manner, to wit, that by 
the common consent (consilium) of their township, 
they shall elect two of the more lawful and discreet 
men of the town and present them to the sheriff of 
Northampton, who shall present one of them to 
the chief justice at Westminster, when he ought to 
render his own account, who shall well and faith- 
fully keep the reeveship (praposituram) of the 
town, and not be removeable so long as they con- 
duct themselves well in their jurisdiction (ilia 
balliva) unless by the common consent (commune 
consilium) of the town : that the burgesses shall 
elect four of the more legal and discreet men from 
the borough to keep the pleas of the crown, and 
all other pleas belonging to it in the same town, 
and to see that the reeves (propositi) rightly and 
lawfully treat as well the poor as the rich. 

In this charter we may observe the power already 



36' NATURE OF JOHN'S CHARTER. 

acquired of electing a reeve for themselves not 
only confirmed, but augmented by permission of 
choosing a second, who was to be nominated by 
the sheriff. This is the first step, unless we except 
the two persons paying the fee farm in the 5th of 
Richard I., towards the election of bailiffs, if indeed 
these persons did not virtually enjoy that office. 
The four who were deputed to keep the pleas of 
the crown are functionaries who now appear for 
the first time, and the duties entrusted to them 
were to collect the forfeitures due to the king when 
any offences had been committed, such as homicide, 
theft or murder, or any other misdemeanor, or 
such as affected his own personal safety, or pleas 
concerning the fraudulent concealment of treasure 
trove, or civil pleas, such as pleas of debt. In 
short it was the power of determining all suits in 
the king's name, for offences committed against his 
crown and dignity as well as against the peace. 

A charter analogous to the one before us was 
given to Lincoln , Norwich, Shrewsbury, and Ips- 

° In the year 1194, the Northampton. — Mag. Rot. 

citizens of Lincoln had ren- Pip. 6 Ric. I., Rot. 8. b. 

dered a fine of 500 marcs for And in the 1st of John, 

such a confirmation of their 1199, they underwent another 

liberties from the king, as he fine of 300 marcs for farming 

granted to the burgesses of the city, as they did on occa- 



ANALOGOUS TO OTHERS. 



37 



wich in the same year, and it also served as the 
type for the privileges bestowed upon the burgesses 
of Grimsby p and Lancaster q . This is all the bur- 
gesses of Xorihampton appeared to have gained 
in the present reign, unless we include them in the 
general advantages ratified by Magna Charta, which 
expressly defined burgage tenure as pure socage,, 
and that these tenures and holding by fee farm 
exempted the tenants from military service'. 

Yet we must not pass on to the reign of 
Henry III., without making an obseryation regard- 



sion of this grant, as well as 
for its confirmation. — Mag. 
Rot Pip. 1 John, Rot. 11. a. 

p Homines de Grimesbi de- 
bent vl. mareas et i. palefri- 
dum, pro habenda carta Re- 
gis de libertatibus suis secun- 
dum tenorem Cartas de Xor- 
hanton.— Mag. Rot. Pip. 3 
John, Rot. 2. b. 

The custom of giving pal- 
freys in addition to the tine 
for confirmation of privi- 
leges, was also known to the 
burgesses of Northampton ; 
thus in the years 1200 and 
1215 are the following en- 
tries : Burgeuses de Nor- 
hantona dant domino Regi 
cc. mareas et propter ea xl. 



mareas unam G. filius Petri 
debet respondere et ii. bonos 
palefridos precii de x. mareas 
prohabendo villa sua adfirmam 
in manu sua, et pro libertati- 
bus suis confirmandis. Rot. 
de Oblatis 1 John. 

Burgenses de Norhamion 
xli. Ii. et xv. s. et viii. d. et ii. 
palefridos pro habenda villa 
sua sicut continetur in Rot. 
xiiii. Burgenses de Xorh- 
amton debent iiii. palefridos 
pro habenda inquisitione sicut 
continetur in Rot. xv. — Mag. 
Rot. Pip. 17 John. 

«* Rot. Chart. 2o. 91. 

r Charter of Liberties, p. 
71 ; Report 72. 



38 John's visit to the town. 

ing John's partiality towards the town itself. And 
this appears to have been manifested very decidedly 
by the frequency with which he made it his abode. 
If we except the 3rd and 4th years of his reign, 
which he spent exclusively on the continent, and 
the 12th, when we can only trace him in the 
neighbourhood of Northampton, we shall find that 
he paid it annual visits, sometimes four in the 
same year, from the time he ascended the throne 
until a few months before his death. We can cer- 
tainly fix it as his residence for at least sixty-four 
days after he became sovereign of England s . It 
was probably in consequence of his often-repeated 
sojourn, that when he took umbrage at the con- 
duct of the citizens of London, he caused the 
exchequer to be held here in the 10th of his reign 
from Michaelmas to the Nativity, and an allowance 
of a hundred and one shillings was accordingly 
made to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex for 
their charges in conveying hither the rolls and 

s In the Mise Roll, of the of Binedon for alms to the 

11th of John occur entries of poor on the day when the king 

payments made to the poor in eat fish and drank wine at 

consequence of the king eat- Northampton, on the day of 

ing fish and drinking wine on the adoration of the cross, 

fast days, when he visited the xlvi. s. et x. d. 
town. Thus, To the ahbot 



CHARTER OF HENRY III. 39 

exchequer of -the barons, and the exchequer and 
rolls of the Jews 1 . 



% Charter of Henry III. 

When Henry the Third assumed the sovereignty, 
the kingdom was in a state of great disorder and 
misery. The monarch was too young to take the 
direction of affairs himself, and consequently the 
government, during the earlier period of his reign, 
devolved in great measure upon his kinsman Wil- 
liam Mareschall, earl of Pembroke. One of the 
first acts of the young king's advisers was to issue 
a general charter to his subjects; this was in 
great measure a repetition of his father's. It 
was confirmed the next year with a few additions 
to check the oppressions of the sheriffs. In the 
third year of his reign Henry's advisers addressed 
a writ to Fulke de Breaute and the bailiffs of 
Northampton, appointing bailiffs to keep the fair 
and regulate all things pertaining to the crown, 
more especially ordering that the merchants should 
liberally and freely deliver their wool, hides, and 
cloth, to the deputed bailiffs, knowing that the 
king would fully satisfy them according to their 

* Madox Excheq. 130, 131. 



40 DISSIMULATION AIS'D 

value". In the 11th of his reign he ratified to the 
burgesses of Northampton the privileges obtained 
from his ancestors. It might seem strange that so 
long a period should have elapsed before the king 
shewed this mart of consideration to the town, 
especially since we know that he had frequently 
been here since his coronation*, had kept his 
Christmas here with great state in the 3rdy and 
8th years of his reign, (1224,) had held a collo- 
quium, or great council of the nobility in the fol- 
lowing year, and assembled another in the ensuing 
August. But this surprise vanishes upon knowing 
that the king was only just come of age, and had 
hitherto been incapable of exercising any authority. 
No sooner, however, was he invested with supreme 
power, than he declared the act of council passed 
in the third year of his nonage (which had stated 
that no letters patent should be held in perpetuity 
until he was of full age) to have ceased, and that 
those who wished to enjoy their liberties must 
renew their charters under his new seal, since he 
regarded ancient ones of no importance. In pur- 



u Rot. Pat. 3 Hen. III. 50th, Jan. 8tb, May 6th, June 

p. I.m. 6. 10th, (Rymer, i. 468, 9;) 

x Henry III. was at North- 52nd, July 20th. 

ampton 49th, April 1 1th ; y Matt. West. 278. 



RAPACITY OF HENEY III. 41 

suance of this, letters were addressed to the sheriff 
of Xorthainpton and others, ordering them to ap- 
prise all who had had any grant of privileges, to 
renew them. Of course there was a fine fixed at 
the re-delivery, and the sum procured by means of 
this arbitrary conveyance of an inspeximus, raised 
throughout England £100,000. As this mode 
of obtaining money did not press upon individuals, 
after this reign it became common. 

Passing over a writ in the 9th (1239) year, 
allowing certain customs for three years in aid of 
enclosing the town, and another to a similar effect 
in the 36th, (1252 z ,) the burgesses acquired no 
fresh advantages until the 39th of Hen. III., 
(1255,) when they had freedom of arrest from 
debt in ail parts of England, under a penalty of 
ten pounds, unless it appeared the debtors and 
burgesses were deficient in doing justice to then 1 
creditors. 

a Another writ to the same villae de termino S. Michaelis 
purport was issued in the anno &c. xlvii° sexies viginti 
53rd year of this king's libras, quas Rex eisdem Bur- 
reign in the following form : gensibus concessit de gratia 
Baronibus pro Ballivis et sua speciali, ad reparationem 
Burgensibus Xorhamtonae. et emendationemmurisui cir- 
Rex mandat quod allocent cumcirgentis villain suam.&c. 
Ballivis et Burgensibus Not- — Firma Burgi, p. 289. 
hamtonse de firma sua ejusdem 



42 VARIOUS GRANTS 

The charter of 11th Hen. III. authorizes the 
burgesses to choose two of the most legal and dis- 
creet men from the burgesses of the town, and 
present them by their letters patent to the chief 
justice at Westminster, who should well and faith- 
fully keep the provostship (praposituram) of the 
same town : and also choose four of the most legal 
and discreet men of the same town by common 
consent to keep the pleas of the crown*. 

In the charter of 41st Hen. III. it states "quod 
nullus mercator tempore nundinarum ejusdem burgi 
hospitetur in eodem burgo cum suis merchandisis 
nisi de licentia et voluntate ballorum ejusdem burgi 
prout fieri debuit et consuevit in temporibus prede- 
cessorum nostrorum regum Anglise." The privi- 
leges embodied in this charter are granted to the 
burgesses and their heirs in perpetuity b . 

Two years later (1257) the former grants were 
confirmed, and the burgesses were allowed the re- 
turn of all writs within the borough, that is, the 
certificate of the sheriff made to the court of what 
he had done concerning the execution of any writ 
directed to him, was now given to the town, thus 

* Tested at Westminster, at Windsor. 
16th March, 11 Hen. III., 39 b Tested at Westminster, 

Hen. ,111.; 7th April, tested 18th Jan., 41st year. 



PROM THE CROWN. 43 

placing it by degrees completely independent of 
the sheriff, and saving the emoluments he had been 
used to receive, whilst his officers were prohibited 
from exercising any act within its liberties. 

In the 40th of Hen. III., (1255, 1256,) Thomas 
Kin, ' mayor' of the town, and John le Spicer came 
into the exchequer, and claimed on behalf of the 
town to have return of writs. But they could not 
shew any warrant for such a claim. Upon which 
the sheriff of the county was commanded by writ 
to summon the mayor and bailiffs of the town, and 
twelve of the better and more discreet men of the 
said town, to appear at the exchequer on the mor- 
row of St. Martin, to shew to the king for their 
whole town by what warrant they claimed to have 
return of the king's writs . In the 52nd year of 
this reign all the foregoing privileges were con- 
firmed, in consequence of their not having been so 
fully enjoyed through the late wars. 

c Ex Mich. Recordo 40 follows : Villata de Norhan- 

Hen. Ill.incip. 41. Rot. 2. a. tonareddit compotum de xxx. 

Firma Burgi, p. 159. marcis quod tenuerat placita 

By an entry on the Great que pertinebant ad viceco- 
Roll of the Pipe of the first of mitem per brevia directa vice- 
Richard I. it appears the bur- comiti, In thesauro liberavit 
gesses had to restore them et quietus est. — Mag. Rot. 
again at that time to the sheriff. Pip. 1 Ric. I. 
It is found in the Record as 



44 EXTRAORDINARY TRIAL WITH 

The charter, however, of the 41st year of the 
reign gave rise to a remarkable trial that took 
place between the citizens of London and the bur- 
gesses of Northampton, which has been detailed 
very minutely in a Latin chronicle, containing the 
history of the mayors and sheriifs of London. 
From the ensuing extract it will be immediately 
seen of what great importance some of the privi- 
leges we have already mentioned were reputed at 
the time they were conceded, especially the pro- 
vision of not being compelled to plead without 
the walls of their own town. 

If Memorandum, that in this year, at the fairs 
of Northampton, it happened that in a conflict be- 
tween the Londoners and the men of Northampton 
certain of the Northampton men were wounded, of 
whom one afterwards died, but whether he died 
from that wounding or from natural causes is un- 
known. But the bailiffs of that town, who always 
envy the Londoners, seized four of the Londoners, 
imputing that death to them, and they imprisoned 
them, and arrested their goods, and the goods of 
other of their fellow-citizens. Which being heard, 
the mayor and citizens, because no Londoner ought 
to plead without the walls of the city, except pleas 



THE CITIZENS OF LONDON. 45 

of external tenures, sought for royal letters for their 
delivery to the mayor, or to his messenger bringing 
the foresaid letters, for their standing right before 
the king, as they ought according to the laws of 
the city; but the aforesaid bailiffs were unwilling 
to dismiss them, neither for that writ, nor for 
another which the mayor again requested. But 
they shut them up closer and more cruelly, against 
the precepts of the king and the liberties of the 
Londoners, and so they remained there until after 
the Purification of the blessed Mary, (Feb. 2,) at 
which time the king came to London, and dwelt 
at the Tower. And on the morrow of his coming 
the mayor and citizens came to the king and re- 
quested from him a third writ for delivering the 
foresaid prisoners, and another writ directed to 
the sheriff of the county of Northampton, that if 
the aforesaid bailiffs should be unwilling to dismiss 
them, that he should enter within their liberties, 
and should deliver them to the bearer of the king's 
letters, bringing them before the king to be 
punished as they deserved, according to the laws 
of the city. Which letters being obtained, be- 
hold rumours that the aforesaid prisoners were at 
Charing, near Westminster, where the mayor and 
bailiffs of Northampton had brought them. Which 



46 EXTRAORDINARY TRIAL WITH 

being heard, the mayor of London sent to them 
certain citizens, bringing the aforesaid writ, which 
writ being read and understood, they were still 
unwilling to assent that these prisoners should be 
liberated to the messengers of the mayor. Then, 
indeed, the mayor of London, with an innumerable 
multitude of people, approaching the king, shewed 
him, heavily complaining, how the bailiffs them- 
selves, in despite of royalty, and to the great dis- 
honour of his city of London, wished to make his 
third writ of no avail, who, moved by anger, sent 
Peter de Nevile, a certain marshal of his house- 
hold, to Charing, who immediately brought the 
prisoners before the king, and they were delivered 
to the mayor. But the citizens immediately told 
against those of Northampton their transgression, 
and their contempt of the royal writ, and they 
replied. Upon which relation and answer the 
king assigned a day to give judgment on the mor- 
row, to give and receive which judgment, to those 
intent on deceiving, it was postponed from day to 
day for more than five weeks, and afterwards the 
third day before the feast of the Annunciation the 
mayor and citizens came to the Tower, and the 
bailiffs of Northampton, before the king in his 
chamber, there being present the chief justice 



THE CITIZENS OF LONDON. 47 

Philip Basset, John Maunsel, Kobert Walerand, 
and others of the royal council. And the men of 
Northampton said that they would never answer 
to them, but to the king alone, because they were 
not bound to plead beyond the walls of their bo- 
rough, and then they produced the charter of the 
king, which was made in the 41st year of the 
king who now occupies the throne ; and the citi- 
zens say that that charter ought not to avail them 
any thing, because they are not in possession of 
many provisions contained in it, and chiefly be- 
cause the provisions apply to all the fairs of Eng- 
land ; to which they answered, that the fairs of St. 
Ive's, St. Botulf s, Winchester, Lynn, and Stam- 
ford, and even this, are particularized by their 
charter. Afterwards the record of the justices' 
roll was read, in which was openly and distinctly 
specified the enrolment concerning the answer 
made to the king for contempt of his writ; but 
regarding the complaint of the citizens and the 
answer of the burgesses little or nothing was writ- 
ten. And the citizens said that they complained 
against them that they had unjustly detained their 
free men, against the liberties of the Londoners, 
after the receipt of the royal writs, and even still 
detain their chattels ; and they complained of other 



48 INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT. 

injuries which they had sustained to the value of 
ten pounds. To which in turn they so replied that 
part they acknowledged and part they defended, 
and in tins business placed themselves upon the 
record of the bishops and barons who were present 
on that day, and then sought judgment. And they 
sought judgment concerning the new charter of 
the burgesses, which ought to be of no value 
against the charters of the citizens which they 
produce, namely, those of Hen. II., Richard, John, 
and the charter of the reigning monarch, and that 
they are in possession of all the liberties contained 
in the aforesaid charters d . 

At length, after much altercation between them, 
a convention and council was held before the king 
and his barons, and because the bishops and others 
who were present at that day on which the suit 
was pleaded were not present, that judgment was 
deferred to five weeks after Easter. Afterwards, 
when the five weeks after Easter were past, the 
judgment was deferred to the quinzaine of the 
feast of St. John (May 6 ?), and we hear no more 
of the affair e . 

d DeAntiquis legibus : Cro- e The burgesses of North- 

nica Maiorum et Vicecomitum ampton would however seem 

Londoniarum, 1846, pp. 46 — to have been successful in 

49. this business, as they were at 



DISPUTE LEFT UNSETTLED. 49 

The legal question involved in this long dispute 
appears to be whether the royal writ or the charter 
was of highest authority. The case was left un- 
decided, at least the chronicler does not take any 
further notice of the litigation, and this constitu- 
tional question remained for the judgment of a 
later age to determine. 

A few things closely connected with the subject 
immediately before us demand a slight notice be- 
fore we leave the events of the present reign : such 
a notice must necessarily be brief, and merely em- 
body an allusion to the facts themselves. During 
this long reign some regulations were adopted 
respecting the fairs. In 1263 there was a large 
settlement of students from Oxford made in the 
town, so that it became a kind of university. We 

a later period, (in the 21 stEdw. merchants should not recover 
I.,)whentwooftheirmerchants their damages. At the time 
were robhed of their money on prefixed, the merchants and 
the king's highway in Glouces- four men from the district 
tershire, on which latter occa- where the robbery was com- 
sion they sued the hundred, mitted appeared in court, 
and a writ issued to the and the jury found a verdict 
sheriff of the county, com- for the merchants, who re- 
manding him to summon four covered their money from the 
good men of the hundred men of the hundred where 
wherein the robbery was com- the robbery was committed, 
mitted to appear in the court An outline of the pleadings 
of King's Bench at a certain is given in Madox, Firma 
day, to shew cause why the Burgi, 157, 158. 



50 NORTHAMPTON AN UNIVERSITY. 

have already seen that in the reign of Hen. II., 
(1176,) little more than a century after the Con- 
quest, Northampton had acquired some reputation 
as a place of learning, and the number of scholars 
who flocked thither on the occasion have been sup- 
posed to amount to several thousands. About the 
same period several students from Cambridge fol- 
lowed their example. The town took part with 
the barons in their war with the king, and in 1265 
it was invested by the royal army, and subsequently 
taken by stratagem. Besides these transactions, 
the patent rolls supply us with the following par- 
ticulars. Writs direct that all the Jews who dur- 
ing the late fight at Northampton had fled to the 
castle for protection should return to the town, 
and dwell there under that of the burgesses f . 
Henry fully intended to have been here during 
November of the present year, but was unable to 
come. The custody of the priory of St. Andrew 
was assigned to Aymo, the prior of Wenlock, be- 
cause it was so damaged by the recent battle that 
regular discipline could be no longer maintained 
within its walls. There might have been two rea- 
sons for confiding this religious house to Aymo's 

f See the writ addressed to Rymer, vol. i. p. 440, from 
twenty-four of the hurgesses Rot. Pat. 48 Hen. III. 1264. 
of Northampton, printed in 



PECULIAR PRIVILEGE. 51 

charge ; one because it was a Cluniac foundation, 
like that he presided over in Shropshire, the other 
because he was well known to the king for having 
entertained him in his own monastery g . 

In the 52nd year of his reign Henry confirmed 
to the mayor^ and burgesses of Northampton, all 
the charters they had previously received, although, 
as it was stated in the record, they had not fully 
enjoyed them in consequence of the late disturb- 
ances. Two years afterwards (1270) the burgesses 
received a singular favour from the crown by 
being permitted to keep their dogs, both in the 
suburbs and the town, without lawing them. u Pro 
burgensibus Northamptonse. Rex omnibus, &c. sa- 
lutem. Cum Burgenses nostri Northamptonse ab 
antiquo quieti esse consueverint de expeditacione 
canum suorum tarn in suburbio ejusdem quam infra 
eandem villain, volentes eisdem Burgensibus gra- 
tiam facere specialem, concessimus eis pro nobis et 
hseredibus nostris quod ipsi Burgenses et eorum 
homines in perpetuum sint quieti de expedita- 

* Henry III. was at Wen- looseness of expression in the 

iock June 6th and Nov. 29th, manner of drawing up these 

1233. documents. Tested at Wind- 

h The compellation is in sor by the king, 6th May, 

these words, "Cum dikcti 52nd year. — Rot. Pat. 52 

nobis maior et burgenses nos- Hen. III. m. 17. 
tri," &c., which shews great 



52 LAWING OF DOGS. 

cione canum suorum tarn in suburbio predictse 
villse quam infra eandem villam. Et quod quieti 
sint de fine et misericordia si qua ad nos vel 
hseredes nostros ratione hujusmodi expeditacionis 
possent pertinere. In cujus &c. T. R. apud 
Westmonasterium. xv. die Marcii 1 ." This very 
unusual exemption, which will require expla- 
nation, they seem from the terms of the grant to 
have been entitled to from an ancient period, but 
it was now established as a special mark of royal 
grace. In the barbarous enactments associated 
with the forest laws, there was one decreeing that 
no person should keep a dog without cutting off 
the three fore claws, or the ball of each foot, in 
default of which mutilation the owners were liable 
to an amerciament of three shillings. This mode 
of effectually preventing dogs running in the forest 
originated in the laws of Canute. It was a custom 
so fully sanctioned by Henry I., that Ordericus 
Yitalis assures us very few of the nobility were 
allowed the privilege of hunting at all during his 
reign. The Carta de Foresta of 25th Edw. I., 
(1297,) sanctioned it in all the accustomed places; 
when the practice fell into disuse it is difficult to 
say, but we know that modern refinement has 

1 Rot. Pat. 54 Hen. III., m. 19. 



FIRST REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT. 53 

requited the acts of cruelty formerly inflicted upon 
the dogs, by levying a tax upon their owners. 

Bearing even date with Henry's confirmation of 
the charters in the 52nd year of his reign, there 
exists amongst the archives of the borough, a royal 
grant of pardon to the men of Northampton, for 
their opposition to him during the baronial wars. 
They do not appear to have taken a more promi- 
nent part in resisting his attacks upon the national 
liberties than any other portion of the community, 
since his weakness and misconduct produced a 
general opposition to his authority throughout 
England, but in accordance with the usual custom 
of the times, they obtained on the final suppression 
of the outbreak, the same as other places, an act 
of pardon for their transgressions, and more par- 
ticularly for having defended the town against the 
royal army. 

Northampton remained in possession of the 
privileges hitherto mentioned without any further 
grants, or any diminution of what it had acquired, 
until the 26th year of Edw. I., (1298,) when a 
writ from the crown commanded the burgesses to 
choose two of the most discreet persons who 
should have full and sufficient authority to treat 
for themselves and the rest of the burgesses, and to 



54 ELECTION OP A MAYOR. 

meet the king at York on the feast of Pentecost,, 
there to consult on the business of the realm. 
This is the first instance of Northampton return- 
ing members to Parliament, and also the earliest 
instance of the towns being directed to choose 
representatives of their feelings in matters con- 
cerning the government of the state. It is true 
that conventions and councils had previously been 
summoned, and several to Northampton, but until 
the present moment the legislative assemblies of 
England did not assume a constitutional character. 
This seems to be the earliest occasion when repre- 
sentatives were freely and independently sent forth 
to give utterance to the popular voice, and North- 
ampton was one of the seventy-six selected to 
return members to Parliaments 

In the following year (1299) Edward confirmed 
his father's charters, with the additional privilege 
that the burgesses should for the future elect a 
mayor and two bailiffs annually at the feast of 
St. Michael 1 . 

k It also grants infangthef, Rot. Chart. 27 Edw. I. No. 

and the power of inheriting 16. 

the property of the deceased. 1 It is during this and the 

Charter of Edward given succeeding reign that we find 

by his own hand, at Canter- persons deputed to act for the 

bury, 27th May, 27th year. — community under their com- 



PUBLIC RIGHTS BETTER UNDERSTOOD. 55 

This is amongst the very few charters that were 
granted during the entire reign, which although 
stretching over a period of thirty-five years is 
peculiarly deficient in municipal enactments. The 
attention of Edward the First was rather engaged 
in adjusting upon a firm basis the shattered con- 
stitution, and in concentrating his energies on 
improving the law. The statutes of the realm 
bear such ample testimony in these respects to the 
wisdom and extent of his exertions, that it would 
be impossible to convey even the faintest idea of 
the numerous grievances he redressed. Henry the 
Third had defied all the principles of liberty and 
justice, and his son seems to have devoted the 
whole scope of his comprehensive mind to making 
new laws and reforming abuses, especially to 
checking the oppressions of the sheriffs, and esta- 
blishing those great Public Eights which were now 
daily becoming better understood and valued. 
Indeed it has been observed by Sir Matthew Hale, 
that more was done in the first thirteen years of 
his reign to settle and confirm the distributive 

mon seal, and to present the not recede from their act or 

mayor at the exchequer. The engagement. See the form of 

intention of which was to hind presentation as given in Ma- 

the principals faster, and to dox, Firma Burgi, p. J53. 
give assurance that th ey would 



56 queen Eleanor's cross. 

justice of the kingdom, than in all the ages since 
that time put together 110 . Therefore to have been 
selected for any municipal advantages by a mon- 
arch so prudent and sagacious must have given 
the inhabitants fair reasons for self-gratulation, 
nor can their descendants, though living under 
altered circumstances and under a changed form 
of civil government, now look back upon this act 
of royal consideration, if they are worthy of their 
heritage, without reflecting similar impressions 11 . 

But the name of Edward the First, when re- 
garded in connexion with Northampton, is linked 
with associations commanding an interest far be- 
yond its vicinity, since the sepulchral monument 
in the neighbourhood, consecrated by sincere affec- 
tion to the memory of his queen, is a work not 
only seizing admiration by its just proportions and 
purity of design, but one to which all Englishmen 
who are imbued with a lofty feeling for art, may 
proudly refer, as an evidence, that at this remote 
period, their own countrymen were capable of 



ra Norton's Commentaries, which the inhabitants were 

p. 102. entitled to certain tolls for a 

n Edward the First made space of two years. Rot. Pat., 

the town . a grant of pavage 13 Edw. I., tested by the king 

in the 13th of his reign, by at Westminster, 8th of May. ; 



GRANT OF FAIR FOR A MONTH. 57 

conceiving as well as executing the most sublime 
ideas of architectural beauty. 

In the eleventh year of his reign Edward the 
Third granted a charter to the town for a fair to 
last for one month, namely, on the Monday next 
after the octaves of the Holy Trinity, and for 
twenty-seven days next ensuing, unless the said 
fair should be an injury to those already established 
in the district . 

Some years elapsed before any additional benefits 
were acquired by the burgesses, and it was not 
until the 8th of Richard II., (1385,) when the last 
recited charter and that of the 11th and 41st of 
Henry III. were confirmed, that any fresh advance- 
ment was made. In Richard' s only charter to the 
town he conceded to the burgesses, 

^f Charter of Eichard II. 

That all pleas of assize, and all other pleas 
whatsoever happening within the liberties of 
Northampton, should be held before the mayor 
and bailiffs of the said town in the guildhall of 

o Tested at Westminster by their paying the fee farm, in 

the king, 18th of March. Rot. answer to a petition presented 

Chart. 11 Edw. III. No. 67. to parliament, 8th Edw. III. 

This fair seems to have been Pet. Pari. 8 Edw. III. No. 

granted as an aid towards 54. 



58 EARLY APPLICATION OF SLIDING SCALE. 

the same for ever: that the mayor should have 
the keeping of the assize of bread, wine and beer, 
and of the assize and assay of weights and mea- 
sures ; that is, that the mayor and bailiffs should 
have the power of trying all writs, pleas and pro- 
cesses, and determining the price of bread, wine 
and ale, and of fixing the standard weight or 
measure by which these articles were to be sold. 
A general enactment of the latter kind exists 
amongst the statutes of the realm, and has been 
supposed to have been passed as early as the 
53rd year of Henry III. This sumptuary law is 
perhaps the earliest application of the sliding 
scale to regulating the price of provisions in pro- 
portion to the value of grain, and it is undoubtedly 
the origin of the various bye-laws that were subse- 
quently made for the government of different trades 
exercised within the borough p . Besides this, there 
was also delegated the power of taking cognizance of 
forestallers and regraters, flesh and fish, within the 
liberty of the town. 

In the year 1400 Henry IV. made a grant of 
Murage to the burgesses, by which they were em- 
powered to levy tolls on various kinds of merchan- 
dise offered in the town for sale ; amongst other 

p Stat, of the Realm, p. 199. 



CONFIRMATION OF CHAPTERS. 59 

articles, upon linen, canvass, cloth of Ireland, cloth 
of silk mixed with gold, samit, diaper, and bau- 
dekin q . 

We are now arrived at a period when commerce 
began to arrest the attention of the legislature, and 
nearly all the enactments of this reign have refer- 
ence to its growing importance. "We have, for in- 
stance, laws relating to navigation, to the wages of 
labourers, to the free passage of foreign merchants, 
to the circulating medium, and to fraudulent col- 
lusion of debtors. And in the statute passed in 
the Parliament convened here in this, as well as the 
preceding reign, the laws of trade received such 
supervision as the increasing imports demanded. 

In the 17ft of Henry YI. (1439) r the last four 
charters, 11 and 41 Hen. III. (1227, 1257), 27 
Edw. I. (1299), 8 Ric. II. (1385), were con- 
firmed without any additions; but in the 23rd 

9 Rot. Pat. 2 Hen. IV., p. VI. (No. 23.) from the mayor 

]. m. 40. and commonalty of the town 

r The charter of the 17th relative to paving, in which 

of Henry VI. gives to the the names of Berwardstrete, 

mayor and the community Seynt Gelystrete, Swynwel- 

(communitati) the proceeds of strete, Kyngeswellstrete, Mari- 

the royal property to the value strete, Seynt Martynstrete, 

of £±0 a year (in eorum rele- and la chemyn, called the 

vamen in perpetuum). Market-place, occur. See the 

There occurs a petition on Petition printed Rot. Pari. iv. 

the rolls of parliament 9 Hen. 374. 



60 MAYOR MADE ESCHEATOR. 

year (1445) a grant was made by which the mayor 
was appointed escheator. This was placing the 
chief officer of the borough in a still more respon- 
sible situation than he already held, as he was now 
constituted receiver of the different revenues accru- 
ing to the crown by right of royal tenures, heirship, 
or inquisition, so far at least as these forfeitures, 
descents, rents and rights, fell within his municipal 
jurisdiction. As such duties had previously been 
discharged by the sheriff, we may see how the 
mayor, who received this appointment solely by 
virtue of his office, and not in the present instance 
at the appointment of the lord treasurer, as was 
customary, was gradually assimilating his own 
dignity to that of the chief functionary of the 
county 8 . 

This charter in a few years became void, as well 
as the same grants of the 23rd of his reign, in con- 
sequence of several acts of legislation passed after 
it was granted, and a new charter 1 , embodying the 
like privilege, was received in the 30th year of the 
same reign. 

Before we proceed to a question upon which 

s Madox Exclieq., 657. at Westminster in the 28th 

t As the charter expresses year of our reign, and ended 

it, hy virtue of a certain act at Leicester. 

made in our parliament began 



ALL POWER REALLY VESTED IN THE BURGESSES. 61 

great misconception has existed, it will be desirable 
at this point to review the privileges actually ob- 
tained by the burgesses up to the present time. 
We have seen how they have slowly advanced from 
the possession of simple burgage tenure, to ap- 
pointing their own magistrates and administering 
commercial laws in their own local court : obtain- 
ing exemption from toll and lastage, freedom from 
arrest for debt out of then own town, acquiring 
the return of all writs within their liberties, and 
becoming emancipated from the interference of the 
sheriff : farming the town themselves, electing re- 
presentatives to Parliament, choosing a mayor and 
two bailiffs, holding pleas of assize, and not being 
amenable out of their own jurisdiction. These and 
other immunities which have been mentioned were 
fully granted to the burgesses, that is, to the whole 
body of inhabitants, to those residents within the 
borough who contributed to its annual expenses. 
There is no mention of any select body being em- 
powered to vary or limit these common rights : no 
provisions are introduced for the creation of bur- 
gesses, no notice whatever acknowledges the exist- 
ence of a common council, court of aldermen, or a 
corporation. There were several charters granted 
to different towns during the early part of Henrv 



62 VOICE OF THE BURGESSES THE ONLY SAFEGUARD. 



YI/s reign, but it is not until the 18th year 
(1439-1440) that the word incorporated even 
occurs, when it is used for the first time in a 
grant to Hull u . The object of its introduction 
was evidently to confer additional strength on the 
persons already composing what was termed by 
the record, "the commonalty/' {communitas,) to 
bind them more firmly into one body, since such 
a state of union would the better enable them to 



« Such is the opinion as 
expressed by that sound con- 
stitutional lawyer, Mr. Ser- 
geant Stephens, in his Hist, 
of Boroughs, (vol. ii. p. 859,) 
but it must be looked at gene- 
rally, since it appears in one 
instance, at least, that of Co- 
ventry, that this city was in- 
corporated as early as the 18th 
of Edw. III. In the Trea- 
surer's box of that city is a 
charter of Queen Isabella, in 
French, giving the inhabit- 
ants power under her own seal 
to elect a sub-bailiff, dated 
at Castle Rising, June 10, 
15 Edw. III. Another charter 
in French is also preserved 
among the municipal ar- 
chives, tested at Kenynghale, 
Oct. 12, 18th of Edw. III., 
conveying from Isabella power^ 



to the men of Coventry to 
elect a bailiff themselves. 
The charter of incorporation 
was granted on the 20th of 
January following. Isabella 
conferred many important 
privileges upon this city 
and was the chief promoter 
of its liberties. Since she 
held the town for her life 
the advantages that were ob- 
tained were mainly owing 
to this connection. Yet we 
must not suppose that all 
her concessions to the priory 
and city were made disinter- 
estedly and freely, since the 
former paid a rent of £107 
a year for all their land held 
under her, and the mayor and 
commonalty paid £1000 for 
their franchises, besides £50 
a year for the fee farm. 



OF CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOM. 63 

resist the encroachments of the sheriffs, and the 
oppressions of the county escheator. The term 
made no essential difference in the constitution 
of the borough, though the burgesses became 
henceforth knit together by a closer bond of alli- 
ance. Several towns preceded Northampton in 
this new method of supporting their individual 
interests, and it was not until the 38th year of 
the reign, (1460,) that by fiction of law, this 
fellowship was stated by royal grant to endure in 
perpetual succession, and Northampton became 
incorporated. There was no prescriptive right to 
such a privilege, and it comes before us for the 
first time under the dynasty of the house of Tudor, 
as in fact does the existence of every other 
secular corporate body. Such being the com- 
mencement of a corporation, we will now enquire 
what fresh advantages it produced. From the 
very nature of the foundation it necessarily took a 
title, and the town was incorporated by the name 
of the mayor, bailiffs and burgesses of Northamp- 
ton, and by that style it was capacitated to sue and 
be sued. 




64 COMMENCEMENT OP MUNICIPAL DECAY. 



% Charter of Incorporation. 

About half a century later these institutions 
became more strictly defined, their intrinsic pro- 
perties began to declare and develope themselves, 
the latent powers they embodied grew expanded, 
and the burgesses introduced the practice of de- 
manding fines from all strangers who came to 
settle within the borough, and share its pri- 
vileges. Such a custom seemed fair enough in 
the infancy of municipal government, when the 
entire expenses of the town had to be met by a 
levy upon the inhabitants at large. It was an 
equitable and usual mode of placing either the 
new resident, or the candidate for admission into 
a mercantile gild, upon an equal footing with the 
rest of the community. Nor must it be forgotten 
that some kind of check was necessary to preserve 
the distinction betwixt merchant strangers and 
the inhabitants. Indeed the legal enactments on 
the statute books during the reign of Edward II. 
and his immediate successors fully enforce a usage, 
handed down to their days, even from the police 
regulations of Canute and Edward the Confessor x . 

x Ancient Laws and Constitutions, pp. 393, 452. 



MISCHIEVOUS EFFECTS OF MONOPOLIES. 65 

Moreover in an age of monopolies it was the pro- 
minent object of commercial companies to pre- 
serve to themselves the exclusive profits of their 
own trade 7 ; although it must be confessed these 
practices undoubtedly tended to restrain com- 
petition, as well as to impede the progress of in- 
dustrial enterprise. At this time, too, the elec- 
toral franchise was regarded rather as a burden 
than a distinction, so that no grievances or com- 
plaints immediately issued from these contribu- 
tions. Political corruption was quite unknown, 
though the subsequent loss of the municipal rights, 
which we have seen hitherto so fully and freely 
bestowed upon the inhabitants, may trace its origin 
in great measure to these fiscal regulations. It 
would be unbecoming the professed object of the 
present enquiry, to enlarge upon the depravity 
which this custom subsequently engrafted upon 
several constituencies. But to suppose the cor- 
poration of Northampton did not adopt the uni- 
versal method of raising money by these expe- 
dients would be attributing to its officers at this 
early period either a liberality and disinterestedness 
of conduct to which they can lay no claim, or else 
imputing to them a neglect of that self protec- 

r Nortou, 137, 159. 
F 



66 UNCERTAIN RULES FOR 

tion which was in a measure sanctioned by the 
example of other places. In truth, blemishes, like 
those plants which overrun the fairest edifices, 
and whose roots silently sap their foundations, 
will imperceptibly creep over the face of the best 
systems human wisdom can frame, and abuses are 
of tardy growth, like the laws written by the 
forbearing hand of time for their correction. 

Illustrations of this mode of admission to com- 
mercial and corporate freedom are abundantly sup- 
plied by the minutes of the common assembly 
books in the archives of the borough. For ex- 
ample, in the year 1550 it was settled by the cor- 
poration that every shoemaker who was disposed 
to set up shop within the town, and should not 
have been prentice within the same, should pay at 
his setting up 30s., that is to say 13s. 4d. to the 
mayor for the time being, 13s. 4d. to the cham- 
berlain of the town, and 3s. 4d. to the occupa- 
tion, or fraternity. In 1557 it was ordered that 
every person who shall be franchised and enjoy 
the liberties of the town of Northampton, shall 
pay for his franchise £4, and that all prentices 
and covenant servants who have served out their 
term of years shall pay 10s. according to the old 
custom, and likewise freemen's sons and children 



ADMISSION TO CORPORATE FREEDOM. 67 

born within the town shall enjoy their freedom 
by patrimony, paying the officers' fees according 
to old ancient custom. In 1564 it was ordered 
that all masons, curriers, fullers, carpenters, joiners, 
and cutlers, should be free of the liberties for 20 s. 
if they followed no other craft, but if they did, 
then to pay £4. In 1624 the freedom to one 
bred and born in the town cost £2 down, and 
a pound a year until the whole amount of £10 
was discharged. In 1641 the admission fee rose 
to £20, unless the applicant had married a free- 
man's widow. The terms fluctuated according to 
the trade of the person desirous of the privilege ; 
thus in 1664 James Hensman paid £10 down, and 
gave a bond of £100 to be forfeited if he followed 
any other trade than that of a silk stocking weaver. 
In 1673 another person paid 20 marcs, binding 
himself by a statute bond to follow no other occu- 
pation than a pin maker. In 1680, in considera- 
tion of the usefulness of his trade, and there being 
no other working goldsmith in the town, an indivi- 
dual had the admission fee lowered from £20 to 20 
marcs. And thus the practice which these minute 
books shew to have existed as early as 1550, went 
on, subject only to such capricious modifications as 
the common assembly choose to determine. 



68 EVILS AEISING FROM 

There is no trace of any of these mercantile and 
municipal impositions before the deed of incorpo- 
ration : but after this period the dangerous doctrine 
of usages came into operation, and the broad prin- 
ciples so explicitly laid down in the former charters, 
became crushed by the power of political intrigue, 
and the illegal interference of the court. "What 
melancholy testimony do all these extracts bear to the 
commercial ignorance of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries ! What a sad forgetfulness and dis- 
regard do they proclaim of the lofty and indefeasible 
rights pervading the charters of the Plantagenets ! 
How much did that selfish system of monopoly and 
exclusion, then prevailing, injure the true interests 
of trade ! Yet the times when these privileges 
^were conferred have usually been stigmatized as 
dark and barbarous ; dark and barbarous in many 
of their phases they undoubtedly were, but not as 
regards the advancement of Popular Liberty. For 
if we would wish to catch the earliest dawn of light 
as it breaks over the horizon of civil despotism, we 
must seek for it in the enlarged perceptions wrought 
upon society by the crusades, amid the confusion 
of baronial wars and civic insurrections, in the pro- 
visions wrested from John on the plains of Runny- 
mede, in the proceedings of Henry at the Mise of 



DEED OF INCORPORATION. 69 

Lewes, or in the statutes planned by the collective 
wisdom of the Edwards. This line of monarchs 
both kindled and diffused the light of constitu- 
tional freedom. 'When the houses of York and 
Lancaster ruled the destinies of England, the flame 
languished and grew dim, and for a while it was 
even extinguished by the excesses and tyranny of 
the Stuarts. The main structure however of the 
British government is fixed upon ancient and 
secure foundations ; the superstructure has been 
often added to, embellished, disfigured, deprived of 
its fair proportions, shaken by an unjust preponder- 
ance, disturbed, overthrown, but the ground-work 
has not been changed. If therefore we would 
desire to know its primitive and uncorrupt state, 
we must, like those diligent antiquaries who search 
for concealed treasure among the tombs of the 
dead, direct our enquiries below the surface of 
fleeting opinions, and dispassionately examine the 
simple elements of its plan. 

In the same year that Northampton became in- 
corporated, Henry VI. made his last effort to retain 
possession of the throne. Eour months after he 
had given the inhabitants the questionable boon, 
(which the preamble sets forth as having emanated 
from the great and memorable services they had 



70 RELATIVE VALUE OF MONEY 

lately performed towards the crown,) the king's 
army was defeated in the meadows near De la Pre, 
with great carnage among the nobility, who had 
espoused his unfortunate cause. The civil war was 
continued with sanguinary excesses until Edw. IV. 
(of York) obtained in 1461 the victory of Towton. 
In the following November, he convened a Parlia- 
ment at "Westminster, and among other acts then 
agreed upon was a charter of pardon under the 
broad seal to the burgesses of Northampton, for 
any part they might have taken in the late war. 

The following year (July 10, 1462) he confirmed 
all the previous charters without additions 8 ; and 
in 1478 granted that the mayor should no longer 
be sworn into office before the barons of the ex- 
chequer, but before the last mayor, the recorder 
for the time being, and the four coroners, or two of 
them at the least, in the guildhall of his own town. 

We must not forget that during the whole of 
the period we have passed over, the fee farm was 
annually being paid into the exchequer. And when 
we consider the relative worth of money during 
these three centuries, so large a return must have 
pressed very heavily upon the burgesses. Por esti- 
mating the sum they had to raise, by the price 

• Rot. Pat. part 5. m 25. 



IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 71 

of wheat, which in average years of good crops stood 
at 4s. a quarter, in times of scarcity at much more, 
but also in fair seasons at much less, we shall come 
to a sufficient idea of the actual rate of the impost. 
We shall then find that in the year 1302, which is 
a period about midway from the first rent charge 
to the reign of Richard III., when it became re- 
duced, a hundred and twenty pounds was equiva- 
lent to seventeen times that sum, (with wheat at 
70 shillings a quarter,) in the current coin of the 
realm at the present day. So that in reality the 
fee farm must be considered as little below £2040. 
But on the other hand, this being a fixed money 
payment, as in course of years the necessaries of life, 
and the various articles of trade became enhanced 
in price, so by degrees it grew less burdensome. 
The difference, in short, betwixt those times and ours, 
when the value of the circulating medium is taken 
into consideration, resolves itself into a simple 
question of arithmetical proportion ; and if the pre- 
ceding illustration has not made it sufficiently clear, 
a comparison shall be instituted as to the value 
of manufactured articles. We shall then see that 
the cost of a pair of boots for the use of King John, 
in the 14th year of his reign (1213), was ninepence ; 
of a pair of shoes for the leader of Henry the Third's 



n 



PEICE OF SHOES AND 



greyhounds, fourpence; of the winter shoes of 
Win. de Blatherwyk, foxhunter of Edward L, and 
those of his two assistants, seven shillings b . Com- 



* A few entries from the 
Mise Roll of 14th of John 
will not inappropriately shew 
the cost of other articles of 
this monarch's dress. 

Pro i pari hoesarum vaccae 
(long hose of cow-hide) ad 
opus Domini Regis ii. s. vi. d. 
Pro i pari sotularium (shoes) 
ad opus Dni. R. vi. d. In 
duobus paribus caerotecarum 
furratis minuto vario (gloves 
furred with small vair or 
miniver) ad opus Do R. iii. s. 

Die Veneris in festo St. 
Barthol. apud Kingeshage 
Will, de Pavilly, pro i sacco 
de cordubano ad faciendam 
robam Dni Regis viii. s. et 
pro duobus paribus ocrearum 
(boots) de corduban, v. s. etpro 
iii. paribus estivalium (sum- 
mer-boots) v. s. et pro duobus 
paribus ocrearum de corduban 
v. s. Item pro duobus "forel- 
lis vaccinis (cases or sheaths 
of cow-hide) furratis" filtro 
(lined with felt) ad imponen- 



dum duos capellos ferri ad 
opus dni R. xxvi. d. Item pro 
i capello ferri reparando, v. d. 
Item pro urinalibus et chassiis 
(cases or frames) ad urinalia 
imponenda, ii. sol. Et pro i 
pari botarum singularum (of 
single or thin boots) ad opus 
Dni R. xii. d. 

The following entry shews 
the price of his breeches : 

Pro uno braccali* ad opus 
Dni Regis unde tela\ venit 
de Garder et argn (de empto) 
ponderabat vi. s. et aurum ad 
deaurandum constitit ii. s. et 
factura xii. d. 

In ii scutis dni R. re- 
parandis et in guigiis ata- 
chiand, et in huciis% illorum 
reparandis iii. s. Pro rubi- 
gine gladii Dni R. detergenda 
iiij. d. 

In the 14th year of John's 
reign he fed 1000 poor at 
Northampton, of whom 500 
had bread, meat, and ale, and 
500 bread, fish, and ale, at a 



• Pair of breeches. f Cloth. 

% The 7iuches, cases or coverings for the shields, probablj of leather. 



EEGAL WEARING APPAEEL. 73 

pare these charges with modern London extor- 
tions, or with the equipments of the huntsman and 
whippers-in of the Pytchley, or contrast the value 
of a horse at two pounds, (such as a knight might 
not be ashamed to ride upon,) with a hunter over 
the same fields this season, and then the altered 
state of monetary payments will be sufficiently 
understood. There cannot therefore remain any 
doubts that the fee farm was an impost the bur- 
gesses had great difficulty in sustaining. No won- 
der then that they sought a reduction, and if 
they obtained nothing else during the short and 
bloody reign of Richard III., by procuring in his 
charter an abatement of 50 marks from their 
annual rent they gained a relief which was ex- 
tremely acceptable. 

The town of Northampton shewed very soon that 
it adhered to the Protector, a part most probably 
taken through the influence exerted by Roger 
Wake and Wm. Catesby, both of whom had large 
estates in the neighbourhood, whilst the latter was 
one of the chief favourites, as well as supporters of 
this usurper's cause. Nothing therefore seems more 

cost of £5. 14s. 7d. It was ever he had eaten meat twice 
the common practice of this on Friday. 
King to feed 100 poor, when- 



74 ELECTION OE THE EORTY-EIGHT. 

natural than that such circumstances should have 
united in influencing Richard's mind to grant the 
remission. 

The battle of Bosworth terminated the contests 
between the houses of York and Lancaster, and by 
fixing Hen. VII. firmly on the throne, restored the 
latter party to power. The enactments of his reign 
have been compared by Lord Bacon to those of 
Edw. L, but on very insufficient grounds. As a 
municipal legislator he is chiefly known by having 
confirmed the incorporations previously granted, 
and of being the first monarch who created a select 
body to restrain the universal voice of the burgesses. 
This line of conduct must not however be attributed 
entirely to his own suggestions, as in the Parlia- 
ment held at Westminster in the 5th year of his 
reign, (1489,) the inhabitants of Leicester and 
Northampton petitioned, that as " by reason of the 
little substance of a multitude who oft in number 
exceeded others who were approved and decent 
persons, great confusion had been caused as well 
in elections as in assessing lawful charges brought 
against them," the lords and commons assembled 
decreed that the mayor and his brethren for the 
time being should choose forty-eight discreet per- 
sons who had held office, and who were liable to 



NORTHAMPTON CHARTERS A GENERAL TYPE. 75 

change as often as was necessary, who should for 
the future elect the mayor and bailiffs. It will be 
observed that this enactment only relates to the 
choice of the mayor and bailiffs, and makes no kind 
of alteration in the character and rights of the in- 
habitants with regard to other privileges. They 
remained burgesses as they were before, and did 
not remotely contemplate committing so suicidal 
an act as to pray for their own disfranchisement. 
The present entry on the rolls of Parliament affords 
another proof how completely alike was the general 
tone of all contemporary charters. Those of London 
were usually taken as the model, and in some in- 
stances, as we have before observed, the immunities 
of Northampton supplied the pattern and authority 
for the guidance of other towns. In the 11th of 
his reign, (1495,) Hen. VII. granted a charter for 
two fairs, for regulating the administration of jus- 
tice within the liberties, and sanctioning the ap- 
pointment of a recorder. This was confirmed in 
the 16th of James I. (1618). The attorney-general 
filed a quo warranto, 2nd Elizabeth, by which the 
privileges were all ratified . In the 1st Charles 
I., the burgesses set forth a claim of issues and 
profits within the town d . 

c Michael. Term, roll 117. 
d Roll. Hil. Term, 1 Charles I., roll 10. 



76 REMISSION OF FEE FARM. 

Henry VIII. confirmed all the preceding charters 
the 2nd year of his reign, and in the 5th of his 
reign, (1514,) remitted £22 annually for ever, of 
the fee farm, which, with the previous reduction 
of 50 marcs by Richard III., brought it down to 
£64. 13s. 4d. ; the sum however now actually paid 
is a trifle more. In the 25th of Edw. III., the king 
by letters patent granted 100 marcs of the fee farm 
of the town to the custos and college of the chapel 
of the Virgin Mary and St. George at Windsor, 
having previously assigned the same as good ser- 
vice money to Roger and Sibilla de Beauchamp 
until the crown had given them 100 marcs from 
land. Prom this they received 80 marcs and gave 
up their letters patent for the first privilege to the 
court of chancery e . 

Elizabeth, in the 41st of her reign, made other 
grants and confirmations, but f after this period the 
corporation underwent no change worth mention- 
ing until municipal bodies were all placed upon the 
system which regulates them at present. With 

e Original record in the self at Westminster, 26 Oct. 

Chapel of the Rolls. Let- —(Rot. Pat. Edw. III. p. 3. 

ters patent for the foundation m. 15.) 

of the Chapel were granted f Pat. Rolls, 41 Eliz. parti. 

22 Edw. III. Chapel of the Rolls. 

Tested by the king him- 



DECLINE OF MUNICIPAL FREEDOM. 



77 



that we have here nothing to do, and the more un- 
pleasant task arises of alluding to decay under the 
Stuarts, and to the miscarriages of the mayor, 
(1661s,) to the removal of aldermen, bailiffs, and 
recorder, (1681, 1687 h ,) to the illegal admittance 
of freemen, (1661 1 , 1769 k ,) and to the sup- 



g In 1661, Mr. Serjeant 
Charlton reported many "mis- 
carriages" of the mayor of 
Northampton, and for which 
that officer was committed to 
the custody of the serjeant- 
at-arms, and reprimanded. 
One of these " miscarriages," 
making infants free on the 
morning of the election, that 
they might vote as he pleased, 
strikingly exemplifies the evils 
resulting from the mode ge- 
nerally adopted hy corpora- 
tions in granting freedoms. — 
Merewether and Stephens, i. 
245. 

h In the new charter was 
" the illegal clause, vesting the 
power of placing and dis- 
placing the officers in the 
crown." (See the exercise ex- 
emplified in the minutes of the 
common assembly, amongst 
the municipal archives.) "But 
the surrender not having been 
enrolled, the charter was by 
the opinion of Sir Edward 
Northey, the then attorney 



general, considered not bind- 
ing, and therefore the borough 
acted upon that of the 15th 
Charles II. until 1795, when 
the burgesses received another 
charter." — Merewether and 
Stephens, i. 246. 

1 In 1663 the committee di- 
rectly negatived the exclusive 
right of the select body of the 
corporation, by resolving that 
the right did not belong to 
the mayor, aldermen, and 
forty- eight only, but in the 
same year the governing body 
procured a fresh charter from 
the crown, confirming the 
former privileges, and rein- 
vesting the government of the 
town in themselves. In the 
same year this Job Charlton 
reported that the inhabitants, 
being householders, were the 
proper electors, the house a- 
greeingwith the committee in 
that resolution. — Id. 

k Rex versus Breton. Burr, 
iv. 2260. 



78 DESPOTIC CONDUCT OF THE STUARTS. 

pression of the charter, (1683.) These events 
happened anterior to the present generation, nearly 
a century and a half ago; they are the recorded 
facts of history, and no longer subjects of political 
dispute ; decisions have been pronounced upon some 
of them by the supreme courts of judicature, and 
the monarchs, who evinced such a total forgetful- 
ness or disregard of the many acts of grace emanat- 
ing from their ancestors — the monarchs whose duty 
it was to punish, rather than to promote electoral 
corruption 1 — who with hearts depraved by selfish- 
ness, and a love of licentious pleasure, thus became 
the unprincipled dispensers of patronage, instead of 
the guardians of morality and justice — whose lives 
were spent in treacherously forging chains to en- 
slave their confiding subjects, and who paid such 
melancholy penalties for their duplicity, their weak- 
ness, or their abandonment of duty — have long been 
justly regarded by the concurrent voice of posterity 

1 The charter of the 15th to restore him to his office of 

of Charles II. to Northamp- alderman. In the return to 

ton, was brought under the the writ, the corporation set 

consideration of the court of forth an amoveas, under the 

King's Bench, in the twenty- power granted to them by that 

first year of that monarch's charter, and the return was 

reign, upon an application supported by the court. — Me- 

by a person of the name of rewether, i. 246. 
Braithwaite, for a mandamus 



LEGAL RESISTANCE OF THE BURGESSES. 79 

as the arbitrary violators of Constitutional Liberty, 
and the most profligate of rulers. They were in- 
deed a generous and unostentatious race of men, 
who offered from their narrow resources, as she tra- 
velled hence in stately progress to Burghley, a 
heavy purse of gold to Queen Elizabeth, (1564,) 
and surely it betrays no lack of dutiful attachment 
to the royal person of Charles I., that their de- 
scendants resisted the illegal levy of conduct and 
ship-money during the commencement of the civil 
war, since they had so recently presented himself 
and Henrietta with costly pieces of plate as they 
passed through the town from the palace of Hold- 
enby, (1634.) 

Let us state the thing fairly. The burgesses had 
proved their love to the crown by this unani- 
mous token of their feelings, but were compelled 
to espouse the cause of the Parliament, to main- 
tain the existence of representative power, (or 
the third estate of the realm,) to protect them- 
selves from the insincerity of misguided councils, 
from illegal taxation, and a despotic stretch of the 
kingly prerogative. We no longer offer to the 
sovereign, whom it is our happy privilege to obey, 
such mean and antiquated compliments as these, 
but have learned how to prove our loyalty and af- 



80 TOWN LANDS MORTGAGED. 

fection by methods more congenial to her princely 
virtues, by the honest admiration of their bright- 
ness, and by engraving their acknowledgment on 
grateful hearts. 

Ij Lastly, Charles II. comes before us in the 
double character of a benefactor and the enemy 
of corporate freedom; his bounty after the fire, 
(1675,) and his first charter, (15th of the reign, 
3rd. Aug., 1663,) entitle him to undisputed praise 
for trying to advance the religious and civil welfare 
of the town ; whilst, on the other hand, his sub- 
sequent forfeiture of this, and nearly every other 
charter throughout the kingdom, declares that he 
was secretly intent upon crushing his subjects. 
When he again restored to Northampton (20th 
Sept.) the privileges he had forced it to surrender, 
(1683,) the borough funds were found so inade- 
quate to meet the expense of the new favour, that 
the town lands were mortgaged for £170 to pay the 
requisite amount. 

It is needless to pursue our enquiries beyond 
this limit, as all the subsequent charters merely 
embody the confirmation of preceding grants. 

But, in conclusion, let us for an instant divert 
our thoughts from the history of the past, and 
bring them forward to the present aspect of the 



CONCLUSION. 81 

town. We shall then distinctly perceive that 
although those early records to which our attention 
has been turned, are now little more than the al- 
most illegible evidences of a forgotten age, yet that 
their spirit is still surviving, pervading and ani- 
mating at this day the whole of our civic institu- 
tions. And we shall be led to acknowledge that 
all the municipal rights, privileges and improve- 
ments which have been gained in later years have 
in reality sprung out of the concessions granted to 
the people by those charters. With equal distinct- 
ness we shall also perceive, how slowly the advan- 
tages, and how slowly the abuses in the system 
have proceeded together ; how they have arisen out 
of customs originally free from reprehension, out of 
regulations which most societies even still look 
upon as pledges of unity and fraternal concord, 
nay, as advantages inseparable from their vitality. 
The very recommendations subsequently degene- 
rated into evils, evils growing to such a magnitude 
that the legislature interfered to correct them ; 
surely this should incline us to do, though tardy, 
yet not unwillingly justice to those who adhered to 
a line of policy incompatible with modern opinions. 
We stand now as it were in judgment upon the 
deeds of our forefathers, and deem ourselves wise in 

G 



82 CONCLUSION. 

our own generation, but the period will also arrive 
when the actions of the present day will be sub- 
jected to the equally impartial review of futurity, 
when the line of conduct w r e adopt, and the sense 
we entertain of individual responsibility, will become 
in turn a portion of history, and deserve either the 
unmixed censure, or the grateful admiration of our 
descendants. It will be no insignificant feature of 
the present century, if our wisdom shall hereafter 
cause it to be appealed to as that happy era, when 
the blessings of peace were not restricted to nations 
collectively, but were understood by the little com- 
munities composing them ; if the angry struggles 
for predominance, and the petty jealousies of party 
conflict, which so painfully disturb the social por- 
gress, were laid at rest and forgotten: and instead 
of witnessing the profitless recitals of intestine fac- 
tion and civil discord, the energies of men were 
seen to be devoted to the intellectual improvement, 
and moral enlightenment of their fellow citizens. 

And who does not see in the charters to which 
our attention has been turned the mutability Ox 
human, the permanence of divine government. 
Or who does not see as he walks through the town 
itself, replete as it is with so many associations of 
its ancient importance, that the scene has been 



CONCLUSION. 83 

changed, and scarcely a fragment remains to indi- 
cate its original features. The venerable sanctua- 
ries of religion have alone been spared from the 
common ruin, and they stand like faithful beacons 
to direct our thoughts from the evanescence of all 
worldly objects, to that great Being who changes 
all things and remains Himself unchanged. Who is 
not reminded as he observes the different schools 
raised for educating the humbler classes, or as he 
beholds those noble structures devoted to healing 
the sick and the infirm of their maladies, that new 
duties claim our regard — that new opportunities 
have sprung up for shewing the feeling with which 
we entertain the bounty of God, and that increas- 
ing means should only serve to stimulate mankind 
to fresh gratitude and more extended charity. 




oo 



84 



EXTRACTS FROM THE 



HIS is not an unsuitable 
place to introduce before the 
reader some extracts from 
the Chamberlain's Book of 
Minutes. They are contained 
in two thick folio volumes 
of paper, written in several 
hands, and relate to all the business usually occu- 
pying the attention of the town assembly. They 
are taken in chronological order, as it would be 
difficult to attempt any kind of classification of 
matter in itself so miscellaneous. 




EXTRACTS FROM THE CHAMBERLAIN S BOOKS. 

At an assembly holden at the Guildhall in 1552, 
it was agreed that every man that from thenceforth 
should have any swan or swans swimming on the 
town several water, should pay yearly 3s. M. to 
the chamberlain for the same, to the use of the 
town. 

Item, that no franchised man should wear any 
other man's or woman's livery. 

Item, that all the records shall be put in the 
vestry of our lady chapel, in a presse to be locked 
with three locks, and to be in several men's keep- 



CHAMBERLAIx's BOOK OP MINUTES. 85 

ing ; that is to say, in the mayor's for one, in the 
keeping of one of the 24 for another, and the third 
in the keeping of one of the 48 yearly. 

Item, that whosoever shall have from henceforth 
any hog or hogs going at large in any part of the 
town or liberties, an hour or more before the 
hoggard goeth forth, or cometh home, shall pay for 
every hog one penny to the pinner as often as they 
offend. 

Item, that no man shall keep more for his fran- 
chise than two beast upon the commons in all, and 
that they be his own, or that they be hired for 
money without any craft or collusion upon pain of 
forty pence for every time, to the use of the chamber; 
and that any party suspect in this behalf, shall be 
sworn before the mayor for the proof of such beast, 
and that the chamberlain may brand every man's 
rother beast, but no horse or gelding. 

Item, Mark Buckby redeemed the Bailiwick for 
ten pounds, and it was granted. 

There are other entries to the like effect. 

Item, at this assembly was assessment of all fran- 
chised men for to sue unto Queen Mary for our 
liberties, and to answer a quo warranto that was 
brought against the liberties, which assessment 
amounted above £36. This quo warranto was begun 



86 EXTRACTS PROM THE 

in the time of Harry Wall, mayor, and begun again 
before this assembly and continued still. 

At a common assembly holden at the Guildhall, 
on the 30th Jan., in the 4th year of Edw. VI. 

That every cordwainer that now dwelleth or here- 
after shall dwell within this town, being a master, 
and doeth occupy as master in the same craft, shall 
pay yearly to the chamber of the same town, 2s. of 
lawful money of England. 

Item, that every journeyman that now worketh 
or hereafter shall work within this town, shall pay 
yearly unto the said chamber Id., and although they 
work but one week within this town, they shall pay 
Id. ; and the master with whom the said journey- 
man or journeymen shall happen to work, shall stay 
it in their hands off their wage, and answer the 
same to the wardens of their corporation. 

Item, that every shoemaker that is disposed to 
set up shop within this town and shall not been 
prentice within the same, shall pay at his setting 
up 30s.; that is to say, 13s. 4<d. to the mayor for 
the time being, 13s. M. to the chamberlain of the 
town, and 3s. M. to the occupation. 

Item, that every shoemaker that hath been or 
shall be prentize within this town that is disposed 



chamberlain's book of minutes. 87 

to set up shop and to occupy as master, shall pay 
16s. 8d.; that is to say, 10s. to the mayor for 
the time being for his franchise and setting up, 
3s. 4>d. to the chamberlain, 3s. 4d. to the occu- 
pation. 

Item, that every shoemaker that is disposed to 
set up shop being born within this town, shall pay 
for his franchise or setting up to the mayor for the 
time being 20^. ; and to the occupation 20d. 

Item, if any shoemaker within this town that is 
man and doth occupy as man, that doth set an- 
other man's servant a work, being of the same 
occupation, that hath wrought a fortnight with any 
one of them, except he be lawfully parted from his 
said master and with his good will, that if any do 
offend in the same, to pay 6s. 8d. for every time, 
half to the mayor and half to the occupation. 

Item, further, if any journeyman of the same 
occupation be detected of any untruth, and thereof 
due proof made, that then the warden of the same 
occupation for the time being, shall give warning 
unto them with whom the said offender doth work 
that they shall immediately put him forth of his 
work, and that he be not set to work by any man of 
the same occupation within this town, upon pain of 
every time so offending, to pay 6s. 8d. ; that is to 



35 EXTRACTS FROM THE 

say, 3s. id. to the mayor for the time being, and 
3s. id. to the occupation. 

Item, that no shoemaker within this town at 
any time set forth stall in the market-place or be- 
fore his shop to shew and selling shoes or boots, 
upon pain for 3s. id. to the mayor and 3s. id. to 
the occupation. And that no shoemaker being not 
a franchised man take upon them to shew or sell 
any boots or shoes within the liberties of this town, 
upon pain to forfeit the same half to the mayor 
and half to the occupation. 

Item, that all the shoemakers within this town 
that doth set up and occupy as masters shall assem- 
ble themselves together by the consent of the mayor 
for the time being yearly upon the 25 th day of 
October, and there chuse two discreet men of their 
occupation, to view and search all manner of Hides 
being barked and sold within any place of this 
town, for the entent to know whether they be law- 
fully wrought or no ; and that no man put any on 
sale before they be searched and sealed upon pain 
of forfeiture of all sorry hides so put to sale, half 
to the mayor and half to the occupation : and these 
being assembled shall yerely choose two discreet men 
of their occupation to be wardens, to see good rule 
and order kept in their occupation for the year fol- 



CHAMBERLAINS BOOK OF MINUTES. 89 

lowing, and that the old wardens and surveyors 
shall present the wardens and surveyors the next 
court day after the election before the mayor for the 
time being in the Guildhall, and there to take their 
oath, upon pain to pay as well the new surveyors 
and wardens as the old that do make default, 

Also that the wardens shall collect all fines and 
amercements, and yield a true account under like 
penalties; and also if any journeyman or master 
contend with the wardens, he pay 6s. 8cl. 

An inventory made the nineteenth day of January 
1559, in the time of Wm, Taylor, mayor, of all the 
town Vessell delyvered to Wm. Harpoll, chamber- 
layn, by the hands of John Adams, as folows : 

First, iij dosen of platters and ii dosen pewter 
disshys brode brynkyd. 

Item, vij pewter disschys narroo brinkes. 

Item, xiii sausers. 

Item, iii dosen of ley mettyll. 

Item, vii spytts with vij handylls. 

Item, ij payre of 

Item, iii longe hyngis of yron. 

Item, ii payre of gynnis, a old condyt cok, and 
iii keys. 



90 EXTRACTS EROM THE 



% ORDER FOR THE BAKERS, TEMPORE GEORGII COLD- 
WELL, MAIORIS, ANNO PRIMO MARIE REGNI. (1553.) 

For as much as the number of bakers be en- 
creased in the town of Northampton, and that they 
do take upon them to serve as well the country as 
the town with all kind of bread, by reason whereof 
they for the serving of their customers in the 
country do lie sore upon the market in this town, 
and do buy every market day a great number of 
grain to their own great lucre and advantage, and 
to the raising of the price of grain and to the 
great spoil of several and inhancing of the price 
thereof, which is against the common wealth, and 
of seven years past newly invented by the said 
bakers ; for reformation whereof it is agreed by the 
mayor and his brethren that so long as wheat shall 
be above vi.s. and viij.J. a quarter and under xii.s. 
a quarter, that no manner of baker of this town 
shall convey out of the town by craft or collusion 
above the weight of two horse load, upon pain of 
forfeiting x.s. at every time that any of them shall 
so offend, to the use of the chamber of the town. 
And when that the quarter of wheat shall be at 
xii.s. and above xii.s., then no baker shall convey 



91 

out of the town above one horse load nor mare 
load and nor no man's load, nor by any other craft 
or collusion, upon pain to forfeit to the chamber 
x.s. for every time so offending. And if the mayor 
for the time being do not endeavour himself to levy 
the same without favor, then he shall forfeit and 
pay for his negligence to the chamber of the town 
x.s. for every time that he shall omit the same after 
due privity thereof had and known, 

It was subsequently ordered that two persons 
should pay the fine for transgressing this regula- 
tion, and that no baker carry bread out of the 
town till the town be first served. 

Item, that no franchised man shall wear any 
other man's or woman's badge or lyvery, upon pain 
of losing of his franchise, except it be the kyng 
and queen's lyvery and badge. 

Item, that every person that shall be franchised 
and enjoy the liberties of the„town of Northampton, 
shall pay for his franchise mil. And that all 
prentices and covenant servants that have served 
out their term of years, shall pay xs. according to 
the old custom, and likewise freemen's sons and 
children born within the town shall enjoy their 
freedom by patrimony, paying the officers' fees 
according to old ancient custom. 



92 EXTRACTS FROM THE 

Item, if any prentice or covenant servant do 
agree with his master or mistress for the term of 
his years before they be expired, he shall pay to 
the chamber mil. for his freedom as though he 
had not been prentise. 

1564. — In the sixth year of Queen Elizabeth it 
was ordered that a purse of a hundred marks ster- 
ling be presented unto her in consequence of her 
coming to the town. 

That all masons, curriars, fullers, carpenters, 
joiners, cutlars, shall be made free of the liberties 
for xx.s. if they occupy no other craft, but if they 
do, then to pay 4£ 

1574. — Ordered that no man shall buy any 
tallow of any butcher either of the town or country, 
but that he shall make and convert the same tallow 
into candles himself, upon pain of every default xx.s. 
shoemakers only excepted, the use of one half to go 
to the presenter and the other half to the chamber 
of Northampton. 

1575. — Ordered that the chandlers shall sell 
their candles at M. a pound and the butchers their 
tallow at 2*. 2d. the stone. 

1624. — The freedom to one bred and born in 
the town was now 21. paid down, a pound a year 



93 

afterwards, the freeman giving security until the 
whole sum of 10/. was discharged. 

At an assembly held in 1634, it was agreed that 
whereas the king's most excellent majesty that now 
is, with his gracious queen, do intend to make this 
corporation in their course or way from Holdenby, 
it is agreed upon and ordered that there shall be 
forthwith provided and bought at the chamber 
charge two fair pieces of plate of the value of three- 
score pounds, and one of the same to be presented 
to the king's majesty and the other to the queen's 
grace, at their coming in procession through this 
corporation, and all the charge of officers and fees 
and other cost for the meeting and attending the 
king and queen through the liberties, shall be de- 
frayed out of the town chamber. 

Ordered the same year that certain officers see that 
butchers bring nothing but wholesome flesh, and 
that fishmongers bring nothing but wholesome fish. 
Repeated 1636. 

1635. — Ordered that Lord Holland chief jus- 
tice in Eyre of the Forests on this side Trent, 
being to sit here shortly about the forests, there 
shall be bought at the chamber charge one gilt 
cup to the value of 15/. or 16/. and presented to 
him from the corporation. 



94 EXTRACTS FROM THE 

1636. — Ordered that the sheriff be sued for serv- 
ing process and executions within the liberties. 

1636. — Item, that there is a new writ come to the 
corporation for the levying of moneys towards the 
preparing of a ship for the defence of the sea and 
kingdom. Now in regard 200/. imposed on the 
town in the last year is a heavy burden that the 
inhabitants thereof are not able to bear, it is or- 
dered and prayed that the mayor of this town in 
case he cannot obtain an abatement of 200/. imposed 
upon the town in this behalf again, shall not sub- 
scribe or set his hands to an allowance of the rate 
of 200/. to be raised again in this liberty. 

1637. — Item, whereas there are 500/. part of 
the 1000/. given by Mr. Ralph Freeman deceased, 
late Ld. Mayor of London, to set the poor on work, 
it is agreed and ordered that the same 500/. shall 
be employed some part in spinning for clothes, 
some part in bond lace making, and some part in 
knitting, and the same to be put into good sufficient 
undertakers' hands. 

1638. — In this year the bailiffs were behind 
hand in the payment of the fee farm rent, upon 
which it was ordered that counsel should be taken 
thereupon, in consequence of which security was to 
be given for the future. But as they had had much 



chamberlain's book or minutes. 95 

hindrance in raising the fee farm rent by reason of 
the visitation of the plague, at which time both 
fairs and markets were taken away, that they pay 
oOl. into the chamber and be discharged from the 
rest. 

1639. — In answer to a letter from the deputy 
lieutenant of the county to the corporation for 
raising 14£. 6s. 8d. for conducting and furnishing 
soldiers into the North, the assembly refuse to yield 
to grant an assessment, but at length being much 
importuned it was ordered to be paid out of the 
chamber stock. 

1640. — A second letter from the deputy lieu- 
tenant of this county requiring ?>L 10s. conduct 
money to be raised, the corporation now as be- 
fore refuse to make any taxation for it, and the 
mayor ordered to return for answer that the cor- 
poration will not yield to any such assessment, 
and that he shall be indemnified for returning such 
answer. John Danby, mayor. 

1640. — Ordered that every member of the cor- 
poration and all others of ability in the town, shall 
be forthwith provided with halbeardes, bills, or 
clubs, to be ready upon any occasions for use these 
dangerous times. Item, that the town gates shall 
be properly repaired. 



96 EXTRACTS FROM THE 

1640. — The mayor being sent for to London 
by a messenger for not paying the conduct money 
imposed on the corporation by the deputy lieu- 
tenant, earnestly importunes the assembly to yield 
to an assessment, for raising it : the voices being 
taken, it was declared against it, and that they 
would not yield to any assessment. Subsequently, 
(Sept. 4,) 1640, the deputy lieutenant ordered that 
the train bands should be sent out of the liberties 
of the county, but upon a poll being taken this was 
not obeyed. 

These acts of the deputy lieutenant afterwards 
formed a complaint to parliament. 

1641. — Ordered that no person unless he had 
married a freeman's widow, should be admitted to 
his freedom under 201. 

The town gates ordered to be repaired, and 
twenty men put to watch nightly through each of 
the four wards. 

1641, January 10. — Ordered that all who have 
muskets should provide themselves with powder 
and bullets — that the stones of St. Catherine's de-. 
cayed chapel shall be taken down and used for 
the present repair of the breaches of the town walls 
— that there be provided at the cost of the chamber 
chains and great posts to them to chain up the 
bridges, and ten pounds laid out in pikes. 



chamberlain's book of minutes. 97 

1642. — Ordered that there should be an assess- 
ment of 100/. laid out in fortifying the town — that 
eight persons out of the bailiffs and forty-eight 
then serve by night in turns to oversee the guards 
and watch — that every householder should send an 
able bodied man every day at one in the afternoon 
to be employed on the works for the defence of the 
town. 

1643. — Orders for fortifying the town, and pro- 
viding men equipped and suitable to ride out as 
skouts. 

Ordered that the fee farm rent of the town and 
other monies be laid out in corn and coals to be 
put by for the use of the town in case it should 
be besieged, which, is much feared; (Aug. 1.) 

Another 100/. ordered to be laid out in defence 
of the town. 

Another order for watching and guarding ; 
(November 8.) 

1644, July 12. — Ordered that as thirty-six 
horses with bridles and saddles were ordered to be 
furnished by the corporation and delivered to Sir 
"William Waller, knight, to be employed in the ser- 
vice of the wars for the king and the parliament, 
the charge of which amounts to at least 100/., the 
sum shall be raised amongst the inhabitants. 



98 EXTRACTS FROM THE 

1654. — It was ordered that the shoemakers 
shall have a constitution among themselves as other 
tradesmen have, and as heretofore they formerly 
have had. 

1662, September 19. — The names given of all 
the corporate officers and burgesses who took the 
oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed 
the declaration against the solemn league and cove- 
nant, appointed by act of parliament for regulating 
corporations. 

In the same year there is payment ordered to 
the town waytes. 

1668. — Ordered that the chamberlain take speedy 
care for the building of the lazerman's house at the 
charge of the town, the same house being driven 
down by the wind. 

1663.— Ordered that the order of 29th of Feb. 
1659, be confirmed, and that for the future the 
Aldermen, Bailiffs, and eight and forty, shall attend 
the assemblies from time to time upon summons, 
and shall come in their Gownes and decent Apparell 
and upon failing hereof the Aldermen shall forfeit 
2s. Qd. a piece, the Bailiffs 2s., and the 48, twelve 
pence a piece. 

Ordered that those persons that have entered 
into bond for procuring money to defray and pay 



chamberlain's book of minutes. 99 

the charge of the TJew Charter which amounts to 
17 01. or thereabouts, as appears by the bill this day 
read unto this house, have the security of this cor- 
poration to bear them out therein. 

1664. — Ordered that James Hensman be ad- 
mitted a freeman of this corporation, he paying 
down ten pounds at his admittance, and giving a 
bond of a 100^. to be forfeit if he follow any other 
trade in this town but a silk stocking weaver. 

1673. Ordered that another person pay 20 
marks for his freedom, giving also a statute bond 
for 1001. on forfeit if they follow any other trade 
than a pin maker. 

1675. — Order that persons wait upon the com- 
missioners for new modelling of the town, and to 
assist them as to the conveniency of rebuilding and 
setting of the streets. 

1678. — Ordered that the Mayor and Bailiffs elect, 
and to be elected, shall observe the ancient customs 
of this place to treat with wine and cakes as 
formerly. 

1680. — Whereas Edward Bayley, Goldsmith, by 
a former order of this house was to pay 20 1 \ for his 
freedom, now upon further consideration of the 
matter and the usefulness of his trade in this town, 
there being no other person of this town that is a 



100 EXTRACTS PROM BOOK OF MINUTES. 

working goldsmith, it is ordered that he be admitted, 
paying 20 marks down at his admission. 

1681. — Lord Montague chosen Recorder, and 
subsequently objected to by Charles II., who exer- 
cised his power under the Charter — the Earl of 
Peterboro' afterwards chosen in his stead and ap- 
proved by the Crown. 

1683. — Ordered that the Charter be surrendered 
and delivered into the hands of his Majesty, and 
that money be raised for defraying the expence of a 
new Charter, either by mortgage or sale of some 
town lands. 

1687. — Whereas by the Chapter lately granted 
to the town of Northampton a power is reserved to 
his Majesty by his order in Council to remove from 
their employment any officers in the said town, he 
therefore dismisses the Mayor, some of the Alder- 
men, the town Attorney, the Bailiffs, and several 
Burgesses, — signed Win. Bridgeman. 

An order by which several new officers are put 
in their places. Signed, Sunderland. 

Other persons removed, and others put in 
their places in March following; the same acts 
repeated in May and September. 



MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 



101 




EAV towns have preserved so 
manv of tlieir orisrinal charters 
as Northampton, as may be 
seen from the following cata- 
logue of those still remaining 
in the possession of the Cor- 
poration. 

1189. Nov. IS. 1 Ric. I.— Grant to the bur- 
gesses of Northampton of several privileges and 
immunities, particularly that they should be free 
from toll and last age throughout all England and 
the sea ports, reserving the yearly rent of £120 
payable for the same to the crown. (Printed in 
English, in Toll Cause, p. 11.) Seal gone. 

Charter of King John, this is not in the posses- 
sion of the corporation. (Printed Chart. Rolls 
and Toil Cause, p. 202.) 

1227. Mar. 16. 11 Hen. III.— Grant whereby 
several privileges are made to the burgesses, parti- 
cularly that they shall be free from toll and lastage, 
reserving the yearly rent of £120. Seal gone. 

1255. Apr. 7. 39 Hen. III.— Grant to the 
burgesses of Northampton of freedom of arrest from 
debt under a penalty of £10. Seal gone. 



102 MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 

1257. Jan. 18. 41 Hen. III.— Grant whereby 
among other privileges to the burgesses, the return 
of all writs within the liberties of the town, the 
sheriff of the county and his officers being pro- 
hibited from doing any act appertaining to their 
office within the liberties. Seal partially remaining. 

1268. May 6. 52 Hen. III.— Confirmation to 
the mayor and burgesses of their former privileges, 
which had not been so fully enjoyed in consequence 
of the war. (Printed in English, Toll Cause, 
p. 12.) Part of seal remaining. 

1268. May 6. 52 Hen. III.— Charter of pardon 
to the men of Northampton. 

1299. May 27. 27 Edw. I.— Charter whereby 
two of the 11th and 43rd of Henry III. are con- 
firmed and fresh privileges granted, namely, that 
the burgesses of Northampton for the future shall 
elect a mayor and two bailiffs annually at the feast 
of St. Michael. Seal in green wax, nearly perfect. 

1385. June 14. 8 Rie. II. — Charter whereby 
the two charters of the 11th and 41st of Hen. 
III. and 27th of Edw. I. are confirmed, and fresh 
privileges granted, namely, that all pleas of assize 
and other pleas whatsoever happening within the 
liberties of Northampton, may be held before the 
mayor and bailiffs of the said town, in the guildhall 



MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 103 

of the said town for ever, and that the mayor of the 
said town shall have the keeping of the assize of 
bread, wine and beer, and of the assize and assay 
of weights and measures, and has power to enquire 
and take cognisance of forestallers and regraters, 
flesh and fish, within the liberty of the town. Seal 
in green wax. 

1431. Mar. 18. 9 Hen. YL— Exemplification 
of an act of parliament for paving and repairing 
certain streets and high ways in Northampton. In 
French. In this exemplification, Bereward, Kings- 
well, St. Giles', St. Mary's Streets, and the Market 
Place, are mentioned, and Swinewell and St. Mar- 
tin's Streets, both now gone. Seal gone. 

1439. May 20. 17 Hen. YI.— Charter whereby 
two charters of the 11th (1227) and 41st (1257) 
of Hen. in., the 27th (1299) of Edw. I., and 
the 8th of Eic. II., (1385,) are confirmed. Seal 
partly gone. 

1445.— Grant of 23 Hen. YL, whereby it is 
granted that the mayor of Northampton for the 
time being shall be for ever hereafter escheator. 
Seal green wax, broken. 

1452. Mar. 3 2. 30 Hen. YI.— Charter whereby 
the mayor of Northampton is appointed escheator 
de novo, for that a former grant made to the same 



104 MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 

effect the 11th of June, 23 Hen.YL, is become 
void by reason of two several acts of parliament 
within mentioned to be passed since the making 
thereof. Seal partly gone. 

1460. Mar. 14. 38 Hen. YL— Charter whereby 
the town of Northampton is incorporated by the 
name of mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses of that town, 
and by that name are capacitated to sue and be 
sued. Provision also made in case of the mayor's 
death, how to proceed to a fresh election, and it is 
granted that no burgess for the future shall be 
obliged to collect any tax out of the liberties of the 
town. (Printed in Toll Cause, p. 23.) Seal gone. 

1462. 20 Feb. 1 Edw. IY.— Charter of pardon 
under the broad seal for all treasons, murders, rapes, 
rebellions, insurrections, conspiracies, trespasses, 
and offences whatsoever committed by the men or 
burgesses of Northampton before the 4th of No- 
vember last past, certain persons being excepted by 
name. Seal of white wax, partially gone. 

1478. May 2. 18 Edw. IY.— Charter wherein 
is recited the one of 27 Edw. I., and by which 
it is granted among other things that the mayor of 
Northampton shall for ever hereafter be sworn into 
his office within the octave of St. Michael, in the 
Guildhall of the said town, before the last mayor 



MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 105 

and the recorder for the time being, and the four 
coroners of the said town, or two of them, and not 
before the barons of the exchequer as formerly, and 
also that the escheator of the said town shall like- 
wise take the oath of office at the time aforemen- 
tioned within the said town and not elsewhere. Seal 
gone. It also remits £20 out of the one hundred 
and eighty marks of the fee farm, for 20 years. 

1484. Mar. 80. 1 Eic. III.— Grant whereby 
Richard III. remits to the corporation of North- 
ampton and their successors for ever, fifty marks, 
part of their annual fee farm rent of £120. 

1-195. Dec. 22. 11 Hen. TIL— Charter for 
choosing yearly for ever at the feast of St. Michael. 
the recorder of Northampton, and two burgesses, 
who with the mayor for the time being are ap- 
pointed justices of the peace of the said town for 
ever, and they three, or two of them, of which the 
recorder is always to be one, have power to enquire 
into, hear, and determine all felonies, trespasses, 
kc, committed within the liberties. Herein also is 
a grant to the corporation and their successors for 
ever of all fines, issues, kc. } forfeited before the 
said justices : and also a grant of two fairs yearly 
for ever, namely, on the feast of St. George the 
martyr, and St. Hugh the bishop, and on the day 



106 MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 

next before, and for six days next after each of the 
said feasts. (Printed in English, Toll Cause, p. 17.) 
Seal perfect. 

1514. Mar. 19. 5 Hen. VIII.— Grant by 
which Hen. Till, remits to the corporation of 
Northampton and their successors for ever, twenty- 
two pounds, part of their annual fee farm rent of 
£120. (Printed in Toll Cause, p. 20.) 

Inspeximus of 27th of October, the 1st year of 
Edw. VI. Seal gone. 

CHARTERS ON PAPER. 

1189. 1 Eic. I.— Latin and English. 
1199. 1 John. — Latin and English. (See Hot. 
Chart, p. 45.) 

1227. 11 Hen. III.— Latin and English. 
1255. 39 Hen. III.— Latin and English. 
1257. 41 Hen. III.— English. 
1268. 52 Hen. III.— English. 
1385. Eic. II.— English. 
1444. 23 Hen. VI.— English. 
1439. 17 Hen. VI.— English. 
1484. 1 Eic. III.— English. 



MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 107 



Miscellaneous Becords. 

Copy of a grant of Hen. II. of privileges to the 
burgesses of Northampton^ reserving the yearly 
rent of £120.,, particularly that they shall be free 
from toll and lastage throughout all England and 
the sea ports. 

1225. Dec. 24. 9 Hen. III.— Writ to the 
sheriff of the county of Northampton, declaring 
grant to the burgesses of certain customs for three 
years, in aid of enclosing the town. (Office copy.) 
Printed in Toll Cause, p. 203. 

1251. 36 Hen. III. — Not in possession of cor- 
poration 3 . Printed in Toll Cause, p. 204. 

a Henry III. addressed a ger, was paid 10s. for bringing 
writ to the mayor, bailiffs, and a writ of great seal directed 
other good men of North- to the honest men of North- 
ampton, (Feb. 1, 1261,) de- ampton, to elect from amongst 
siring them to afford the themselves, and appoint a 
scholars proposing to sojourn mayor in the said town, be- 
there every protection and cause the former mayor there 
accommodation. And at the had been expelled and put 
same time assured the mas- out of his office by judgment 
ters and scholars how favour- given against him in Chan- 
ably he felt affected towards eery. The mayor was after- 
them. — Rymer, i. 403. Rot. wards confined for the same 
Pat. 45 Hen. III. reasons in Nottingham castle, 

In the 16th Ric. II., Nicho- — Issue Rolls, p. 251. 
las Auncell, a royal raessen- 



108 MUNICIPAL AECHIVES. 

1273, 4. 2 Edw. I. — Commission to take Hun- 
dred Eolls. (Office copy.) Printed in Toll Cause, 
p. 13. 

1274.5. 3 Edw. I.— Hundred rolls. (Office 
copy.) 

1275, 6. 4 Edw. I.— Hundred Eolls. (Office 
copy.) 

1275, 6. 4 Edw. I. — Grant to the mayor, bai- 
liffs, and good men of the town of Northampton, 
of certain customs in aid of enclosing their town, 
to be taken for five years. (Office copy.) 

1284, 1285. 13 Edw. I.— Grant of pavage. 
(Office copy.) Printed in Toll Cause, p. 204. 

1295.6. 24 Edw. I.— Grant to London. (Office 
copy.) 

1301. 29 Edw. I.— Grant of murage. Printed 
in Toll Cause, p. 205. (Not amongst archives ?) 

1301, 2. 30 Edw. L— Grant to London. 
(Office copy.) 

1329. 3 Edw. III.— Extract from Coroner's 
Roll. (Office copy.) An extract printed in Toll 
Cause, p. 207. 

1335. 9 Edw. III.— Grant of pontage. (Office- 
copy.) Printed in Toll Cause, p. 206. 

1336. 10 Edw. III.— Confirmation to the 
priory of St. Andrew's, Northampton. (Office copy.) 



MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 109 

1376. 50 Edw. III.— Petition from the bur- 
gesses amongst others of Xortharnpton touching 
their fee farm rent. (Office copy.) 

1400. 2 Hen. IV. — Grant to the burgesses of 
certain customs in aid of enclosing the town, to 
continue for two years. (Office copy.) Oct. 3. 
Printed in Toll Cause, p. 206. 

1431. 9 Hen. VI. — Exemplification of a petition 
to Parliament, with the answer to it, concerning 
the paving of the streets of Northampton. (Office 
copy.) 

1459. Mar. 14. 38 Hen. VI.— Charter. English. 

1489. 4 Hen. VII. — Exemplification of act of 
Parliament, from rolls of Parliament. (Office copy.) 

1514. Mar. 19. 5 Hen. VIII.— Charter. 
English. 

1585. 27 Eliz. — Exemplification of the privileges 
of the hamlets within the manor of Bromsgrove. 
June 19. 

1599. 41 Eliz. — Quo warranto allowed to mayor, 
bailiffs, &c. (Office copy.) Printed in Toll Cause, 
p. 22. 

1599. Apr. 31. 41 Eliz. — Grant to the mayor, 
bailiffs, &c. (Translation.) 

1618. Apr. 20. 16 James I.— Grant to the 
mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses. Lat. and Eng. 



110 MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES. 

1554, 1555. — Inspeximus of Philip and Mary. 

Inspeximus of Edw.VL, of James and George II. 

James II. — Perpetuityto mayor of Northampton. 

1702. — Charter of Queen Anne. 

Charter of George III. — Printed in Toll Cause. 

Claims and petitions relative to the fire. Pol. 
paper. Sep. 20, 1675. 

Chamberlains' accounts. 1704, 1708, 1691, 
1701, 1 688, 1693, 1707, 1692, 1703, 1705, 1698. 

Bailiffs' accounts of Hallaughton. 37 Hen. VIII. 

Extracts from Pipe Eolls. Office copies. 

Deeds relating to St. Leonard's Hospital. 




THE CASTLE AND PARLIAMENTS. 



Ill 



The Castle and Parliaments. 




b " Northampton shire, says 
the Record, renders the farm of 
three nights, thirty pounds by 
weight : for dogs forty-two 
pounds, blanc, at twenty in 
the ora. For a gift for the 
queen, and for hay, ten pounds 
and five oras. For a hawk, 
ten pounds. For a sumpter 
horse, twenty shillings. For 
alms, twenty shillings. For 
a huntsman's horse, twenty 
shillings. From the manor 
of Queen Edith, forty pounds. 
From Clive (Cliff) ten pounds. 
The burgesses of Hantone 
(Northampton) render to the 
sheriff thirty pounds ten shil- 
lings a year. This belongs to 
the farm thereof. The coun- 
tess Judith has seven pounds 
out of the issues of the said 



HEN the Conqueror's survey 
was made the possessions in 
the town of Northampton lay 
divided betwixt the crown, 
some of the abbatial ecclesi- 
astics, and other persons 
of rank and consequence 13 . 

borough." 

In the preceding extract 
there are some things deserv- 
ing explanation, and all the 
entries are curiously illustra- 
tive of the customs of the age. 
I will examine them here 
without reference to any bear- 
ing they may have upon the 
municipal or other institutions 
of a more general character 
that were then established. 
Their significancy in these 
respects has already under- 
gone examination. 

At so early a period as the 
one our attention is now di- 
rected to, every single entry is 
of an important nature. Valu- 
able for the statistical infor- 
mation it gives us, as shewing 
the relative worth of property 



112 



EARLY PRIVILEGES OE THE CROWN. 



Amongst the names of these various proprietors, 
that of Countess Judith, a daughter of Odo earl of 



or the amount of actual wealth 
then in the country ; as shew- 
ing who were its possessors, 
and in what proportion they 
divided the soil and its pro- 
duce betwixt them. These 
entries, according to their 
nature, equally display the 
temper in which justice was 
administered, personal plea- 
sures indulged, or the chari- 
ties of the affluent dispensed. 
And illustrative of this, we 
may see how the county of 
Northampton contributed to 
these various results. 

The farm of three nights 
is a custom generally as an- 
cient as the time of the Con- 
fessor, (1042—1066,) and in 
one instance it is mentioned 
in Domesday to have existed 
as far back as the reign of 
Ethelred his father, (979— 
1016.) It was a service either 
rendered by actual hospitality, 
or by furnishing the king with 
honey, corn, and malt, as in 
his manors in Cambridgeshire, 
where his tenants thus paid 
the amercement ; or it was 
commuted by payment of 
thirteen pounds eight shillings 
and fourpence in lieu of the 



entertainment ; but in Oxford- 
shire the same reception was 
considered equivalent to the 
sum of one hundred and fifty 
pounds. — (Domesday, v. i. p. 
154.) When the imposition 
was satisfied in kind, it would 
of course be more onerous in 
proportion to the number of 
retainers the monarch brought 
with him. 

The entries respecting 
horses, dogs, and hunting, fall 
among the inferior, though 
not less remarkable notices 
occurring in this invaluable 
record ; notices so frequent, 
that they serve to shew how 
completely the sports of the 
chace were united with the 
feelings of the reigning mo- 
narchs. Thus whilst we see 
forty- two pounds assigned for 
the support of dogs, a sum 
four times the whole rental 
arising from the town, twenty 
shillings were deemed suffi- 
cient, even at a period memor- 
able for the profuseness of its 
benevolence, to be expended 
in almsgiving or works of 
charity. In the reign of the 
Confessor we read of three 
thousand cakes of dogs' bread, 



HISTORY OF COUNTESS JUDITH. 113 

Albemarle, by Adeliza, half sister of William I., is 
not the least remarkable, whether regarded in 
reference to her dignity and her affinity to the new 
sovereign, or in connexion with one of his bravest 
supporters. She had been given in marriage to 
the Earl Waltheof, a warrior whose prowess greatly 
assisted her uncle in the arduous subjugation of 
Yorkshire, and probably out of consideration for 
this valuable service, as much as with a view of 
conciliating a noble whose hereditary influence 
might have been dangerous to his ambitious pro- 
jects, he loaded him with fresh accessions of terri- 
tory in various parts of England. 

The history of secular dignities at this early time 
is involved in great obscurity, and it would be 
foreign to the present enquiry to attempt to eluci- 
date a question so pregnant with difficulty. Wal- 
theof s father was the Saxon earl Siward, unques- 
tionably a name of dignity, both before and after 
the Norman invasion, and Waltheof himself has 



and of many peculiar services rather a rent roll of the king- 
rendered in kind, but which dom than a collection of na- 
in the time of the Conqueror tional laws, and it is only in- 
became changed for payments ferentially that we shall be 
in money. able to extract any constitu- 

It must always be borne in tional information from it. 
mind, that Domesday Book is 



114 HISTORY OP WALTHEOF. 

been called earl of Northumberland, Northampton, 
and Huntingdon, but of this no sufficient proof has 
ever been adduced. Besides this reputed rank, he 
however inherited large estates; several of the 
tenants held their lands from him during the time 
of Edward the Confessor, and the dowry of the 
countess considerably augmented them. It may be 
readily imagined that the Conqueror would find 
himself little at ease in his new kingdom; the 
people had scarcely had time to become reconciled 
to their slavery, and a sudden endeavour to liberate 
themselves from its yoke could hardly have been 
unsuspected. In this age of darkness and inhu- 
manity, an age when the broad distinction betwixt 
might and justice was universally confused, the 
slightest cause, whether real or apparent, was suffi- 
cient to awaken suspicion, and call forth the exer- 
cise of tyranny. From some cause, we know not 
what, history has not however exempted the cha- 
racter of his wife from the perfidy of betraying 
him; the earl suddenly fell under the displeasure 
of his royal kinsman, who, after suffering Waltheof 
to languish by a long confinement in prison, or- 
dered him to be beheaded at Winchester. The 
Conqueror now desired to bestow the Countess 
Judith's hand on Simon de St. Liz, a Norman in 



FIRST ERECTION OE THE CASTLE. 115 

his confidence, who had come to seek his fortunes 
in England, but whose bodily deformity caused her 
to reject him. Indignant at such an unexpected 
resistance to his wishes, the king seized her posses- 
sions, amongst them sixteen houses in Northamp- 
ton, and part of the revenue of the town, and trans- 
ferred them, with her eldest daughter Matilda, into 
the hands of his favourite. It is to this inheritor 
of Waltheof s united rank and estates that the erec- 
tion of Northampton castle has been assigned, nor 
does there seem to exist any strong reason for dis- 
crediting the generally-received opinion c . 

After so great a lapse of time, and considering 
the distraction and civil war that prevailed within 
a century after the castle is reported to have been 
built, such structures being the first to suffer in 
the general disturbance, it is not surprising that so 
little of the first edifice should remain. Enough 
however is still traceable to mark the outline of its 
bulwarks, to shew where the bastions stood out 
from the curtain wall, where the moat separated 
the inner from the outer bailey, whilst a postern 
gate yet continues. In regarding the general figure 

c The authority of John Simon de St Liz. — Chron., 
Brompton expressly states it p. 975. 
to have heen the erection of 



116 DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE. 

of the plan, and judging from the existing mounds 
of earth, the debris of ancient buildings, the line of 
decayed and ruinous walls, and then comparing 
these with other buildings of a similar kind which 
still remain in a more integral state, for example, 
with Pevensey or with Pickering, there appears to 
have been a keep within the inner bailey, probably 
at the north-east end ; in connection with this, the 
enceinte or boundary wall, which was occasionally 
flanked with circular towers, the enclosed area 
being occupied with erections, usually of wood, of 
a more domestic nature. The Nen flowed in its 
natural channel to the west, and the waters of the 
same river filled the moat, and encompassed the 
fortress on every side, though the moat itself is 
only visible at present as a dry ditch to the south* 
The few existing marks of a strictly architectural 
kind exhibit features in perfect accordance with the 
characteristics of the period to which its origin has 
been already assigned. Before pursuing the history 
of this building any further, or bringing in review 
the incidents that have tended to invest it with 
interest, I will briefly recur to the life of its foun- 
der. Under the hope of improving his fortunes, 
he had with two friends accompanied the Conqueror 
to England; they indeed returned early to their 




r r J< : 



r ; 



- 









^^fi^ 



HISTORY OF SIMON DE ST. LIZ. 117 

native country, but the bright prospects of Simon 
de St. Liz naturalized him on British soil. Within 
a few years after his marriage he founded the neigh- 
bouring priory of St. Andrew, and filled it with 
Cluniac monks. The order was indeed never nume- 
rous in this country, and it is not a little remark- 
able that most of the endowments arose out of this 
early Norman intercourse. Simon de St. Liz, to- 
wards the close of his life, made the common journey 
to the Holy Land, and had even entered upon a 
second, when death arrested his pilgrimage, and he 
was buried within the walls of the abbey of St. 
Mary of Charity, in France, upon which his own 
recent foundation in Northampton was dependant. 
Were it within the scope of this enquiry, we might 
here linger to reflect on the contradictory feelings 
that actuated the sentiments of the age, contrast 
the early life of the soldier, his ambition, rapine, 
and thirst for bloodshed, with the remorse and 
devotion of his declining years ; we might observe 
how the two extremes of human nature became 
strangely blended together in the same individual, 
how the restless and savage warrior, whose hands 
were stained with violence and crime, became trans- 
formed, under a happier impulse, into the humble 
penitent and the mortified recluse. But for such a 



118 COMPARATIVE BEAUTIES OE 

retrospect we have not leisure, nor indeed would 
the present be a fitting opportunity. Yet we may 
not omit the avowal, that it is by such comparisons 
history delights to teach her moral lessons, and 
that a habit of drawing contrasts whilst instituting 
enquiries of any intellectual kind, will unveil its 
really philosophical aspect ; and thus too, to carry 
out the idea a little further, in estimating the rela- 
tive beauties betwixt military and ecclesiastical 
architecture, we may observe how, in their inten- 
tions so discordant, they mutually engage the at- 
tention, the one impressing the mind by its stern 
solidity, its severe simplicity and dignified repose ; 
the ottier captivating the eye of taste by its ele- 
gancy, richness and variety of decoration, and 
awakening the deepest feelings of emotion by the 
solemn grandeur, the holy symbols, and the sa- 
cred purpose of a pile dedicated to the glory of 
God. 

There is another apparent contradiction betwixt 
the two styles, namely, that whilst the age of de- 
votional buildings is for the most part wrapt in 
obscurity, the builder being seldom known, there 
often existing a wide interval between the date 
of the foundation and that of its actual erection 
or consecration, and therefore the date becomes 



ECCLESIASTICAL A>T> MILITARY ARCHITECTURE. 119 

merely conjectural, left to the guess of ingenuity 
to settle, or to the diligence of induction to esta- 
blish, or to fix by analogy, from some peculiar 
resemblance to other religious buildings presumed 
to be coeval, the mass of information relating to 
military structures, unhappily themselves too often 
swept away, is afforded to us in minute and con- 
tinuous completeness. So that it may be truly 
asserted we have, on the one hand, Gothic build- 
ings still rearing their lofty heads in pristine 
magnificence, proclaiming in notes of harmony the 
duties of men, without any record being left us to 
indicate whose skill and piety constructed them; 
and on the other hand there are military remains, 
mere roofless, tottering walls, crumbling, venerable 
ruins, whose darkest, dampest nook may be often 
explained by an entry on an official document, by 
a record of a genuine and undoubted nature laid 
up among the national archives. IS T or, whilst they 
furnish every needful illustration, is their value less 
remarkable for the curious light they frequently 
throw upon the manners and domestic usages of 
the period, for the political and statistical in- 
formation they abound in, for the animated real- 
ity and freshness of their facts, as contradistin- 



120 HISTORY OF SIMON DE ST. LIZ. 

guished from all other sources of contemporane- 
ous history d . 

Before proceeding to adduce a few extracts from 
these evidences, the attention must be re-directed 
to the noble family already mentioned. We have 
seen how there was united in the same person the 
character of warrior, architect, and devotee, and 
his son the third earl of Northampton strove with 
filial enthusiasm to emulate the actions that have 
transmitted his father's name to posterity. He too 
in his day became an architect. He assisted in 
laying a corner-stone to the honour of St. Guthlac 
at Croyland, and placed thereon a gift of a hundred 
marks for the workmen : he endowed the abbey of 
Sawtry in Huntingdonshire, and terminated his 
labours by erecting a similar religious house to 
St. Mary de Pratis in the verdant meads of De la 
Pre near Northampton. It cannot be said these 
virtues perished with the first possessors of the 
earldom of Northampton, since a higher amount 
of architectural knowledge, a clearer insight into 
its principles, and a better appreciation of its 

d The Pipe, Clause and whilst the Ministers' accounts, 
Liberate rolls have innumer- or Reparation rolls, are exclu- 
able entries of this nature, sively devoted to the subject. 



early'state of the castle. 121 

beauties, attended by more disinterested benevo- 
lence, by a self-devotion to the cause of humanity 
and the progress of social refinement, seem to have 
descended as the indefeasible attributes of the title. 
In returning to the immediate consideration of 
Northampton castle, I shall not so much restrict 
myself to an architectural investigation into what 
it actually was, as I shall endeavour to follow those 
notices which occur on the rolls relative to its his- 
tory as the temporary abode of the English mo- 
narchs, and the seat of our early legislative as- 
semblies. Architectural notices would indeed be of 
little comparative value, the object to which they 
refer being laid nearly level with the ground. Nor 
again does it seem easy to settle how the building 
first came into the hands of the crown, since we 
find it enumerated as one of the royal possessions 
in 1174, though the grandson of the founder was 
still alive. What became of the possessions of this 
last earl Simon de St. Liz in Northampton or else- 
where, it is now perhaps quite impossible to ascer- 
tain; none of his family succeeded him in his 
dignity, and the title became extinct after his 
death. This happened in the year 1184, yet ten 
years previously the castle was in the hands of 
Henry II. From this period downwards it is often 



12Z 



EARLY STATE OF THE CASTLE. 



mentioned on the Pipe rolls, as the "turris de 
Northampton e " In the Pipe roll of Richard I. 



e Item in elemosinis con- 
stitutes militibus de Tem- 
plo i. marca in Burgo de 
Norhamptona. Et monachis 
ejusdem villse xx. s. et in 
liberacione x. militum resi- 
dencium in castello de Nor- 
hamtona cum ipso vicecomite 
a crastino S« Michaelis anni 
praateriti usque ad vincula S. 
Petri sequentis anni scilicet 
de ccc. et vi. diebus, c. et 
liii. per breve Regis. Et in 
liberacione c. et viii. mili- 
tum solidarum qui fuerunt 
cum Humfredo de Bohun 
constitutis apud Norhanto- 
nam de i. viginti c. et xviii. 
per brevia Ricardi de Luci. — 
Mag. Rot. Pip. 20 Hen. II. 

Et in reparacione Turris 
de Norhantona lxiiii. li. et 
xiii. d. per breve Regis et per 
visum Phillippi filii Jordani 
et Willielmi filii Remundi et 
debet viii.li. et viii. sol. — Mag. 
Rot. Pip. 28 Hen. II. 

Et in reparacione Turris 
de Norhantona xxxv. li. et 
xiii. d. per brevem Regis et 
per visum Willielmi filii Rei- 
naldi et Phillippi filii Jordani. 
—Mag. Rot. Pip. 29 Hen. II. 

Et in liberacione servien- 



tium de Norhantona xxxvj. 
marc35 per breve cancellarii. 
Et in operacione castri de 
Norhantonae c. s. per idem 
breve. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 3 
Ric. I. 

Besides the castle there 
were two other buildings be-, 
longing to the crown in the 
town, whose repairs are oc- 
casionally mentioned on the 
Pipe rolls. The one is com- 
monly called the ancient fa- 
bric, the other the hall. 
Perhaps the former may be 
the Lardarium mentioned in 
the Liberate Roll, 5 John. 

Alanus de Covintre reddat 
compotum de ii. s. de veteri 
fabrica in Burgo de Norhan- 
tona. Et pro operanda aula 
de Norhantona iii. s. per breve 
Regis.— Mag. Rot. Pip. 30. 
Hen. II. 

Et in reparacione et emen- 
dacione murorum turellorum 
et domorum castri Northan- 
tonae anno liiio. per Williel- 
mum Grilly et Simonem 
Champeneys tunc ballivos 
ejusdem villse xxvi. li. per 
breve Regis. — Mag. Rot. Pip. 
54 Hen. III. 

The civil wars tended to 



EAKLY STATE OF THE CASTLE. 



123 



it is spoken of thus : " Adam de Sanford renders 
an account of five marks of Winchester money 
which had been deposited in the tower of North- 
ampton and lost through bad custody/' The date 
of this extract is in the year 1189. Passing over 
a few notices of minor importance we reach the 
reign of King John f . Both he and his prede- 



injure the town greatly, as 
we learn from the cotempo- 
rary entries on. the Records; 
thus in the year 1226, we find 
the following entry. Et in 
defaltum redditus villas super 
domos vastas, x.s. — Mag. Rot. 
Pip. 10 Hen. III. 

Id the 36th of the same 
reign the crown made a grant 
of murage, to keep up the 
walls, by which writ the bur- 
gesses were empowered to 
take tolls upon the sale of 
brushwood, straw, cloth, tan- 
ned hides, sea fish, casks of 
ashes, wool, sheep, goats, and 
pigs, as they passed through 
the town, merchandise coming 
by boat, flax, millstones, gar- 
lick, &c, for every two thou- 
sand onions sold, a toll of a 
farthing was required. — Rot. 
Pat. 36 Hen. III. m. 12. 

1 An order to the sheriff of 
Northampton to expend 40 
marks in repairing the castle. 



— Rot. Clause, 7 John, 1205. 

Writs to the barons of the 
exchequer, ordering them to 
settle with Henry de Bray- 
broc his expenditure for re- 
pairing and strengthening the 
castle from the time it was 
in his custody. Exemption 
from castle- ward granted to 
William, the son of Hamon, 
and his soldiers, and order 
issued to Henry de Braibroc 
not to inconvenience them 
about this service. — Ibid., 15 
John, 1213. 

Ordered to the forester of 
Salcey to let Gaufredus de 
Marteney, constable of the 
castle, take materials and 
brushwood from the forest of 
Salcey to strengthen the cas- 
tle of Northampton. 

Writ to Gaufredus de Mar- 
teney to deliver up the castle 
to Roger de Nevil and come 
to the king with his soldiers 
and all the garrison of the 



124 ILLUSTRATIONS OF MANNERS. 

cessors on the throne occasionally visited this dis- 
trict for the sake of the hunting if not for weightier 
reasons of state, and there can be little doubt that 
at such times they made the castle their residence. 
In the Chancellor's roll of the third of this king's 
reign (1201) we meet with an entry conclusive of 
the assertion, and it is so illustrative of the nature 
of this description of document, and presents by 
its ample details so vivid a picture of the business 
habits, the easy spirit and recreations of the time, 
that little excuse will be necessary for quoting it. 

"In repairing the king's houses in the castle 
of Northampton five marks. To Serjeants who 
brought the heads of six outlaws, six shillings g . 
In repairing the aforesaid castle five marks. For 
four carriers bringing the hunting gear of the king 
from Northampton to "Westminster half a mark. 
In repairing the houses of the king in the castle of 

castle, bringing with him all and keeping the fortress in a 
his harness, and all his own state of defence. — Ibid., 16 
as well as all the royal imple- John, 1215. 
ments, such as wooden en- E A similar entry exists on 
gines and quarells, (the king the Rotulus Misae, 14th John, 
was then at Marlborough.) Willielmo homini Ade Crok 
The custody of the castle was qui tulit vj. capita Wallen- 
then transferred to Roger de sium servientium Cadewallani 
Nevill, and the manor of amputata ad Dominum Re- 
Thorp, with all its returns, gem apud Roffam vj. sol. 
granted to him for guarding 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF MANNERS. 125 

Northampton and Silveston forty shillings. To 
the chaplain at Geddington fifty shillings of his 
salary for the past year. The cost of a carriage 
and harness for the use of the queen twenty-eight 
shillings and sixpence. For a judge, and doing 
justice, three shillings and sixpence. In the pur- 
chase of hay for feeding the beasts in the park of 
Northampton thirty- seven shillings ; and for the 
expense of taking six prisoners from Northampton 
to Stamford, and thence to Nottingham, seventeen 
shillings and ninepence." Remember we are now 
entering into the age of feudalism, a time of igno- 
rance, illegitimate force, and moral imperfection, 
where we shall observe every thing in the system 
discordant to our modern notions, every thing op- 
posed to our general ideas of liberty and civiliza- 
tion; let us bear this in mind when we examine these 
facts, and without measuring them by the standard 
of the present day, contrast them with each other. 
What is the picture we behold, and what are the 
results of our reflections? We see from a single 
extract on the sheriff's accounts the manner in 
which the revenue was expended, how freely the 
personal pleasures of the monarch were gratified; 
and with what singularity do these payments stand 
in juxtaposition with each other ! The head of an 



126 STATE OF ENGLISH FREEDOM 

outlaw valued at a shilling, whilst the services of 
the king's confessor, with his salary in arrears, 
fetched no more than the same price per week h : 
again, the keep of the royal deer considered worth 
an outlay of seven and thirty shillings, whilst the 
remuneration of an officer of justice fell down to 
three and sixpence. Any comments of mine would 
be superfluous, the facts themselves will elicit their 
proper reflections 1 . Let us pass onwards in search 
of other information. We are at the commence- 
ment of the reign of King John, a period of pure 
administrative despotism, when intestine divisions 
began violently to convulse the realm: when the 
rising energies of the people sought for some con- 
sideration of their natural rights, when they finally 
freed themselves from political thraldom and ob- 
tained a redress of their grievances. The monarch 



h It seems to have con- the press of those entering the 

tinued such till the sixth of gate, and several wounded and 

Edward I. — Rot. Claus. m. 6. killed hy the blows of the 

1 An illustration of another vergers ; and he sends Wil- 
character offers itself in a liam Tilly, mayor of North- 
letter of Fulke de Breaute to ampton, to explain the cir- 
Huhert de Burgh, in which cumstance, and begs to be 
he states that a number of informed what ought to be 
poor begging alms at the done. — Rep. Dep. Keeper. V. 
hospital of St. John in North- Append. II. No. 738. 
ampton had been killed by 



DURING THE REIGN OP JOHN. 127 

himself became aware that personal activity, a 
quality he never wanted, was more than ever ne- 
cessary. We accordingly find him constantly on 
the alert, seldom a week together in the same 
place : as a proof of his restlessness he visited 
Northampton in fourteen different years of his 
reign. He placed the royal castles in an effectual 
state of defence, and entrusted their custody only 
to those persons who were supposed to be attached 
to his interests, and upon whose faith he could 
place implicit dependence. The office of castellan 
or constable of the castle was one of great import- 
ance, as it has remained an honour to the present 
day. It was an office held during the king's plea- 
sure, usually for a year, but among the earliest 
appointments in connection with Northampton it 
was retained for three. Four of these officers, 
Robert de Braybroc, Richard Marshall, Roger de 
Neville, and Fulke de Breaute, took a prominent 
part in the transactions of this and the succeeding 
reign, and will probably again present themselves 
to the notice. When the king appointed the last 
of these nobles, and impatiently forced him upon 
the keeper by a second writ under his private as 
well as the public seal, he was little aware of the 
vexation he was destined to awaken in his mind, 



128 EXPENSES CONNECTED WITH THE CASTLE. 

or that one for whose promotion he evinced such 
extraordinary solicitude should render him and his 
son so ungrateful a return. 

Pursuing chronological order, the next account 
we meet with deserving attention is a writ on the 
Close rolls, (1206,) addressed to the barons of the 
exchequer, wherein the engineer is ordered to be 
paid at the rate of ninepence a day, with a grant of 
thirty shillings for a robe for his wife. Other 
entries occur authorizing payments for general 
repairs and the transport of military engines, which 
may be passed over. In the year 1215 we have 
another writ addressed to the barons of the ex- 
chequer, ordering them to remunerate Henry de 
Braibroc for forty quarters of grain, and twenty- 
four hogs, bought for the royal use and placed 
within the castle, at the rate of two shillings for 
each quarter of grain and the same sum for each 
hog. In the middle of this year the custody of 
the castle was transferred to Soger de Nevil, and 
the manor of Thorpe granted him for keeping it in 
a proper state of defence. 

We pass on to the next reign, when during the 
constableship of Pulke de Breaute (1222) we meet 
with the first express mention of the gaol in the 
castle, the order given that the verderers of Salcey 



SEVERITY OE THE FOREST LAWS. 129 

should deliver to him materials for its reparation, 
as well as for the royal houses at Silveston and 
Brigstock. The troublesome state of public affairs, 
the successful resistance and growing power of the 
barons, had become by no means diminished 
through the accession of Henry III. to the tin-one. 
The early age at which he commenced his reign 
was also in many respects unfavourable for the 
establishment of domestic peace. The separation 
of Normandy from the possessions of the English 
crown, and the consequent loss to the royal re- 
venue, contributed to render him more dependent 
for the aid of his subjects than his father had been : 
whilst the severity of the forest laws, ever a fruitful 
cause of popular discontentment, though mitigated 
in some degree by the enactments of the Great 
Charter, had by no means lost their force. An entry 
in illustration of this occurs on the Close rolls in an 
order of release granted to Eadulphus cle Eyneston 
from the castle gaol, where he had been confined 
for merely leading three greyhounds without a 
leash through the royal forest. It may probably 
be considered that he underwent an excessive pun- 
ishment, but when it is known that the most 
trifling infringements of the law were usually visited 
by loss of life or bodily mutilation, he seems to 

K 



130 PREVALENT LOVE OF THE CHACE. 

have received but gentle correction for his trans- 
gression. The king himself was at this time at 
Northampton, and is stated, in the document re- 
ferred to, to have exercised this act of clemency at 
the suit and for love of master Roger Lacoc the 
physician. The same fondness for the pleasures of 
the chace pervaded all classes of society alike; 
peasants and prelates were equally within its influ- 
ence, and sought together the same excitement; 
even Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, for his 
trespasses on the royal hunting ground, called forth 
the severe reprehension of his sovereign, and has 
left, in this respect, no enviable reputation behind 
him k . During this visit, Henry issued various 
writs of a local character. As they throw con- 
siderable light on the personal habits of the mon- 
arch, as well as evidence the minute attention paid 
to matters of a public and private nature, a few of 
them shall be brought under review. We have a 
writ addressed to the barons of the exchequer au- 
thorizing them to repay the bailiffs of the town 

k Rot. Claus. 6 Hen. III. kennel.— Mag. Rot. Pip. 4 

p. 517. And in the same way John. So did Seffride, Bp. 

Eustace, Bp. of Ely, rendered of Chichester, pay a fine of 

himself obnoxious to the king's ten marcs for hunting in the 

displeasure, and gave twelve royal woods without leave. — 

dogs and a limer out of his Mag. Rot. Pip. 33 Hen. II. 



SIEGE OE BEDFORD CASTLE. 131 

eight shillings which they had laid down for the 
carriage to London of cloth bought for the royal 
use at the fair, and for canvass and wrappering to 
pack it up : one to the bailiffs, bidding them pur- 
chase for Nicolas the squire, six ells of bleu 
at eighteen-pence an ell, and a dressed lamb 
skin : one to Hugh de Neville, authorizing him to 
give the prior of St. Andrews eight poles for mak- 
ing joists for the tower of his church: the king 
had previously granted thirty rafters from the royal 
forest, to the abbot of St. James, whose buildings 
had been burnt down. About two months after 
this visit, Henry III. again took up his residence 
in the castle of Northampton. He was then in his 
eighteenth year, on his way to Bedford, with the 
intention of crushing the insurrection of Fulke de 
Breaute. It was an arduous undertaking, and the 
siege of that castle occupied him little less than 
eight weeks, since we find him there from the 21st 
of June to the 19th of August, (1224). Immedi- 
ately he had proceeded on his journey as far as the 
castle then existing at Newport Pagnell, oppressed 
perhaps by the heat of the weather, he suddenly 
recollected having left behind him the royal store 
of wines, and a mandate was forthwith addressed 
to the sheriff of the county, desiring him to forward 



132 SIEGE OF BEDFORD CASTLE. 

without the least delay the four casks that had 
been left in his custody at the castle. 

Though the legitimate title of Henry III. to the 
English crown was undoubtedly clear, yet it can 
hardly be said his pretensions to it were undisputed. 
He went however through the ceremony of a coro- 
nation, though the symbol of royalty itself had been 
lost, with the rest of the regalia, whilst being 
transported across the Wash. He was youthful, 
and inexperienced, but the discretion of his pro- 
tector the earl of Pembroke, aided by the activity 
and valour of his high, justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, 
made some amends for these deficiencies, and en- 
abled him to resist for a time the growing power 
of his barons, as well as permanently to crush the 
danger menacing his possession of the sovereignty 
from Louis king of France. A caution has been 
already dropped against forming judgments of the 
past by the standard of the present age. Such 
modes of thinking will often invest facts with an 
unreal colouring, and both distort their own fea- 
tures, and the consequences they are intended to pro- 
duce. The historical enquirer should exercise habi- 
tual caution and discretion, duly balancing against 
each other the events of the period, estimating 
them by the prevalent opinion of that particular 



CEUELTY OF HUBERT DE BURGH. 133 

time, not being himself unaware that the march of 
civilization, and the progress of enlightenment are, 
as Christian perfection ought to be, daily advanc- 
ing. Without going into the whole transactions 
connected with the fall of Bedford castle 1 , I will 
briefly state that exasperated by the dilatory nature 
of the siege, Hubert de Burgh tarnished the first 
great victory of his master by hanging eighty of 
the garrison after it fell into his hands. We shud- 
der upon reading such an act of barbarity, but in 
our detestation of the deed forget that this was the 
custom of the age : we forget that the lower as 
well as the upper classes, true to the degradation 
of fallen humanity, had their minds alike famili- 
arized with deeds of cruelty, and looked on if not 

1 An extract from the Scu- in capite de wardis et honori- 

tage roll in the Tower may bus quae sunt in custodia sua 

serve to shew the nature of in balliva tua scilicet de scuto 

the military service performed duas marcas, pro exercitu 

on this occasion ; it is headed nostro Bedeford in quo fait 

Scutagium exercitus domini nobiscum per praeceptum 

Henrici regis de Bedeford nostrum. — Episcopus Wigor- 

scilicet de scuto duas marcas. niensis qui habet milites suos 

— Rex vicecomiti Ebor. Salu- in exercitu habet litteras di- 

tem, praecipimus tibi quod rectas vicecomitibus Wigorn. 

habere facias R. comiti Ces- Glouc. Warv. de feodis mili- 

triae et Lincolniae scutagium turn quae de domino rege tenet 

suum de feodis militum quae in capite, &c. — Misc. Roll, 

tenet de nobis in capite, et de No. 10. 8 Hen. III. 
feodis militum quae tenentur 



134 SIEGE OF BEDFORD CASTLE. 

as regardless as exulting spectators. No doubt it 
was an execrable deed, and the more frightful 
mockery of justice from being carried into effect 
under the sanction of the highest legal officer of 
the realm. Yet modern parallels may readily be 
found, and to press the subject homewards to the 
feelings, it can scarcely be a point of dispute how 
posterity will estimate the humanity and refinement 
of a nation which with all these offensive examples 
before it as warnings still enforces the same mode 
of criminal punishment. 

During the blockade just spoken of, the castle of 
Northampton rendered considerable relief to the 
king, and the town likewise furnished towards it 
several carpenters, and other persons whose in- 
genuity was serviceable. When at length the for- 
tress was taken, several of the engines were dis- 
mounted and returned home, whilst the harness of 
the king was sent by the sheriff of Bedford to 
London m . Of a building that withstood for so 
many weeks the most vigorous efforts of Henry to 
reduce it to subjection, nothing now remains but a 
conical mound of earth, whose base is washed by 

ra The various expenses con- methods of attack, are given 

nected with this memorable on the Close rolls of the year 

siege, an account of the mili- with the utmost minuteness, 
tary engines, and the different 



PRESENT PROSPERITY OF THE TOWN. 135 

the silent waters of the Ouse. On this gentle 
eminence originally stood the donjeon, within whose 
massive walls the besieged, inspired with all the 
hopeless courage of despair, entrusted their last 
chance of safety 11 . But whoever seeks for these 
vestiges of its former importance in the modern 
town, or delights to visit a spot consecrated to 
liberty by this unavailing struggle, and rendered 
dear to the lovers of national freedom, vainly seek- 
ing for the living monuments of its ancient great- 
ness, will still be gratefully repaid in beholding 
those stately piles, which are devoted, through the 
extensive charities of a London citizen, and the 
purer philanthropy and patriotism of the present 
noble owner of TToburn, to the social improvement 
and sanitary wants of the district. 

In 1253 Henry directed a survey to be made of 
the condition of the castle of Northampton, at the 
time John de Grey received the custody of it : his 
commissioners found that the park was " decently 
kept in vert, venison, and pasture," and that new 

n This was not the first as owing xx. marcs for being 

occasion in which the bur- in the castle against the king, 

gesses of Bedford held out Mag. Rot. Pip. 2 Hen. II. ; 

this fortress against the crown, and again they are returned 

as we find in the Pipe roll of for the same sum, 4 Hen. II. 
2 Hen. II. they are returned 



1 36 REPARATION OF NORTHAMPTON CASTLE. 



works had been executed in the castle, by the 
sheriff of the county, as in walls, houses and other 
matters : that all the houses of the said castle 
might be maintained at slight cost ; that the same 
sheriff had bestowed much expenditure on the great 
wall of the castle, which, however, still needed 
great repairs, and that there were then in the castle 
hewn and unhewn stone, lime and sand, which 
might be applied to that work . 



o Henricus Dei gratia Rex 
Anglias dominus Hiberniae 
dux Normanniae, Aquitaniae 
et comes Andegavensis Vice- 
comiti Northamptonae salu- 
tem. Precipimus tibi quod 
assumptis tecum dilectis et 
fidelibus nostris Rogero de 
Whelton, Eustachio de Wat- 
ford, Roberto de Plumton, 
Willielmo Tilly, Willielmo 
Gaugy, Benedicto Dod, Wil- 
lielmo de la Funtaine, et 
Radulfus Chaunpeneis sub 
sigillo tuo et sigillis eorum 
sine dilatione nobis scire 
facias in quo statu dilectus 
et fidelis noster Johannes de 
Grey recipit custodiam Castri 



Illustri et reverendo do- 
mino suo domino Henrico 
Regis Angliae domino Hiber- 
niae duci Normanniae Aqui- 
taniae et Comiti Andegavensi 
dilecti et fideles sui Rogerus 
de Whelton, Eustacius de 
Watford, Robertus de Plump- 
ton, Willielmus Tylly, Wil- 
lielmus Gaugy, Benedictus 
Dod, Willielmus de la Fun- 
taine, et Radulfus Champe- 
neys salutem. Noverit do- 
mine excellencia vestra nos 
ad preceptum vestrum cir- 
cuisse et diligenter circum- 
spexisse castrum vestrum de 
Northamptonae et parcum 
vestrum ibidem ad certificant 



nostri de Northamptonae et vos in quo statu dilectus et 

parci nostri ibidem. Teste fidelis vester Johannes de 

me ipso apud Sutton xxx. Grey recipit custodiam pre- 

die Maii anno regni nostri dictorum castri et parci. 

xxxvij. Cujus statum vobis trans- 



REBELLION OE SIMON DE MONTFOHT. 137 

Towards the close of this reign the castle and 
town of Northampton were the scenes of important 
events, owing to the rebellion of the barons headed 
by Simon de Montfort. 

It was on the 5th of April, 1265, that Prince 
Edward made his assault upon the town, on which 
occasion his councils were assisted by William de 
Valence, de Clifford, and others of the nobility. 
Much precautionary skill had been used by the 
king's adherents to facilitate his admission. The 
monks of the Cluniac Priory were greatly attached 
to the royal cause, and the same feeling had previ- 
ously manifested itself among this religious order 
during the disturbances at Lewes. The religious 
brethren of the priory of St. Andrew had informed 
the king during his stay at Oxford that they had 

mittimus inspiciendum. In- levi et decenti custu potuerant 

venimus parcum vestrum de sustentari. In magno eciam 

Northamptonae bene et de- muro castro ejusdem idem 

center custoditum de viridi, W. Vicecomes vester tempore 

venaceone et pastura. Inve- suo maximum custum appo- 

nimus eciam in castro vestro suit, tamen adhuc magna in- 

Northamptonae multas opera- diget emendacione. Prop- 

ciones per fidelem vestrum terea invenimus in eodem 

W. de Insula vicecomitem castro petram scissam et non 

vestrum in comitatu predicto scissam, calcem et sabulonem 

de novo factas ut in domicilio unde maxima in eodem muro 

muris et omnibus aliis locis poterit fieri emendacio. — An- 

ubi necesse fuerat. Ita quod cient Letters in the Tower, 

vestra domus castro ejusdem No. 442 a and 442 b. 



138 PALL OF THE CASTLE. 

undermined the walls of the castle, and concealed 
the entrance by timber. Simon de Montfort, who 
was amongst the most impetuous defenders of the 
town, barely escaped with his life, and was taken 
prisoner very early in the siege. Whilst the gar- 
rison were invited to a treacherous parley with the 
assailants, the monks pointed out the secret pas- 
sage, and by this Philip Basset and 40 knights 
speedily entered and gained possession of the in- 
terior of the castle. Two days after its surrender, 
several of the principal baronial supporters gave 
themselves up as prisoners. To shew the prevalent 
spirit, it might be enough to state that the scholars 
from Oxford who had established themselves in the 
town were found in arms on the popular side, as 
enemies to the royal cause ; they were consequently 
placed under the most severe custody, and with 
difficulty Henry could be induced to spare their 
lives. This was the first grand victory of the civil 
war, and the outrageous conduct of the royalists in 
sacking the town, together with their rapine and 
sacrilege, which was sanctioned by their leader, 
greatly inflamed the minds of the people against 
the monarchy Such deeds were considered by a 
contemporary chronicler, who favoured the side of 

p Henr. Knyghton, 2448. 



EFFECT PRODUCED ON THE BATtONS. 139 

the conquerors, as enough to provoke the divine 
retribution for the evils which befel the perpetra- 
tors afterwards q . The elder de Montfort received 
the intelligence of Henry's advance upon North- 
ampton too late to assist the cause of the barons, 
but the news of its downfall, and of the dreadful 
excesses committed by the victors, only served to 
inspire his followers with a deeper hatred for their 
enemies, whilst it led them to resolve that the 
succeeding month should not pass over without 
all the joy of their adversaries being turned to fear 
and confusion : a vow fully redeemed by their sub- 
sequent actions at Lewes and Evesham 1 ". 

9 T. Wykes. to explain the customs and 
r After the baronial con- state of society at the time, 
flicts, pleas of the crown were as the following extract will 
held to enquire into the part sufficiently prove, 
different individuals had taken Robertus Rector ecclesiae 
during these disturbances. de Bereweby (Barby) dicit 
The pleas relating to North- versus Philippam de Paun- 
amptonshire have been printed ton quod die S li Clementis 
in a volume put forth by the proxima post bellum de Eve- 
Record Commissioners under sham venit ad domum suum 
the title of Rotuli Selecti, and apud Bereweby cum aliis 
they furnish a valuable illus- malefactoribus noctanter et 
tration of the manorial history hostia sua et januas suas fre- 
of the county at this particular gerunt et ipsum et totam fa- 
period, as well as serve to miliam suam depredatur sci- 
shew the part taken by the licet i. palefridum cum her- 
principal families, besides giv- nesio pretio xl. s. et summa- 
ing information which tends rium suum cum toto har- 



140 GRANT OF PARDON TO THE INHABITANTS. 

Although the burgesses of Northampton had 
taken no more active part in the commotions of 
this period than the inhabitants of other towns 
in the kingdom, yet in accordance with the cus- 
tom of the times, they obtained,, on the final 
suppression of the rebellion by the king's victory 
at Evesham, a general pardon for past transgres- 
sions, and more especially for having defended 
the town against the royal army, an act to which 
they had been compelled by the forcible occu- 
pation of it by the adherents of Montfort. Similar 
letters of grace were granted by Henry to many 
other towns ; the original grant to the men of 
Northampton, under the great seal, is still pre- 
served among the muniments of the corpora- 

nesio suo pretio ij. marcae et pretio vi. s. viii. d. et alios 

ij. equos carecarum pretio libros de theologia et de 

xxiiij. s. et i. tabarium cum romano pretio xx. s. et am- 

quatuor capuciis pretio i. plius et forsarium suum cum 

marca, et duo paria botarum omnibus quae infra contine- 

et i. par ocrearum cum cal- bantur, pretio xx. s. Item 

cario et i. capello pretio vi. s. pannos ad faciendos saccos 

et iij. nappas et tria manu- pretio ii. s. Item i. tunicam 

tergia pretio v. s. Et i. chip- et i. piccie eboris pretio ii. s. 

hum cum hanaperio pretio Et de rebus sororis sue aspor- 

ii.s. et i. par barillae pretio taverant, i. capetum, ii. lin- 

xii. d. et i. lavatorium pretio theamina, i. rochetum, i. ca- 

xii. d. Item i. librum qui vo- pucium et alia minuta quae 

catur Portehors pretio xl. s. pertinent ad mulieres pretio 

et i. librum de cantu organi, viii. s. — Rot. Select. 175. 



GRANT OF PARDON TO THE INHABITANTS. 141 



tion s . In the year following the battle of Evesham, 
1266, a parliament was held at Northampton, 



s See also Rot. Pat 52 
Hen. III. ; the document is 
as follows : 

Henricus dei gratia Rex 
Anglias Dominus Hiberniae 
et Dux Aquitaniae omnibus 
-Ballivis et fidelibus suis ad 
quos presentes littere per- 
venerint, salutem. Volentes 
majori et probis hominibus 
nostris de Northampt. gratiam 
facere specialem remisimus et 
pardonavimus eisdem et toti 
communitati ville ejusdem 
omiiem indignacionem et 
animi rancorem quos erga 
ipsos conceperamus occasione 
detentionis ville nostre North- 
ampton contra nos et captionis 
ejusdem, et eciam occasione 
transgressionuin et excessuum 
»si quos contra nos fecerunt 
tempore turbacionis habite in 
regno nostro et eis transgres- 
siones et excessus hujusmodi 
quantum in nobis est similiter 
perdonavimus et ipsos ad gra- 
ciam et pacem nostram ad- 
misimus, nolentes quos ipsi 
per nos heredes nostros justi- 
ciaries ballivos seu alios minis- 
tros nostros occasione predicta 
decetero graventur in aliquo 
seu molestentur. Ita tamen 



quod stent recto in curia 
nostra si quis de transgres- 
sionibus aliquibus versus eos 
loqui voluerit, et erga nos et 
heredes nostros bene et fide- 
liter se habeant in futurum. 
In cujus rei testimonium has 
litteras nostras fieri fecimus 
patentes. Teste me ipso apud 
Windes. sexto die Maii anno 
regni nostri quinquagesimo 
secundo. — Seal in green wax ; 
broken. 

The Jews of Northampton, 
who had been expelled during 
the disturbance there, on the 
restoration of peace are ordered 
to return to the town and be 
under the protection of the 
burgesses. — Patent Roils, 48 
Henry III. 

In the 25th Edw. I., 1297, 
in anticipation of approaching 
tumults in the town, a writ 
was addressed to the sheriff of 
the county that he should go 
to Northampton without de- 
lay and securely guard the 
castle there, so as to ward off 
both from it and the town the 
contemplated danger. Rymer, 
ii. 878. 

By a writ dated 10th Dec, 
50th Hen. III. (1265), the 



142 DEFEAT OF THE POPULAR PARTY. 

when many of the nobles who had been forfeited 
for their participation in Monfort's rebellion were 
restored to their estates ; sentence of banish- 
ment was pronounced on the younger Simon 
de Montfort, and the bishops of Worcester, Win- 
chester, and London, were excommunicated by the 
papal legate for their adherence to the popular 
party. Prom this period downwards, the notices 
occurring relative to the castle of Northampton 
decrease in value as they descend in the order of 
time. 

It continued however to be, as before, one of 
their principal residences whenever the English 
kings visited the county, but improved methods of 
warfare gradually began to lessen its importance as 
a fortress. The energies of Edward I. were called 
into exercise upon a different field ; his anxiety was 
directed towards the northern borders, as well as 
to subdue the Welsh; he had consequently but 
little comparative need of military defences in the 
central districts of England. His successor had 
enough to do in protecting himself against the in- 
cursions of the Scotch, yet the general troubles of 

king had ordered all who 13) at latest, to go forth and 

owed him service to meet in expel the rebellious barons 

array at Northampton, on the from Kenilworth. — Rymer, i. 

day of Lucy the Virgin (Dec. 467. Rot. Pat. 50 Hen. III. 



SURVEY OF THE CASTLE. 143 

his reign rendered it necessary that the royal castles 
should be restored, and maintained in an efficient 
state. In 1323 another survey of the castle of 
Northampton was taken, from which we learn 
some most interesting particulars as to its condition 
and extent in the early part of the fourteenth cen- 
tury. It appears that some time before the date 
of this document, the great hall, the two principal 
chambers, and the lower chapel had been destroyed 
by fire, and the jurors estimated the cost of their 
restoration at 702/. They found also that the 
chambers of the " new tower" in the said castle, 
and also six turrets on the circuit of the wall, were 
for the most part destroyed by Nicholas de Segrave, 
keeper of the castle, in 1307 : among other dilapi- 
dations are enumerated ruined walls, a crazy gar- 
den-gate, a ruinous barbican, and a certain "old 
tower called Faukestour, which was begun in the 
time of King Henry the Elder." This passage 
seems to indicate that popular opinion attributed 
the erection of this " old tower" to the celebrated 
Fulke de Breaute, the terrible "Falkesius" of the 
monks of St. Alban's, who, as we have seen, was 
warden of the castle in 1216. Although the times 
of Fulke and of King Henry the Elder (Henry II.) 
were not the same, yet some accidental circum- 



144 



ESTIMATE OF REPARATION. 



stances now unknown, may have led to the associ- 
ation of the name of that redoubted foreign mer- 
cenary with a work constructed before his arrival 
in England. The jurors found that it would re- 
quire the sum of 395/. 6s. 8d. to repair the defects 
last named : thus it is evident the castle was in a 
most decayed state ; the estimated outlay necessary 
for its restoration would have exceeded 12,000/. of 
the present currency*. 



* Edwardus Dei gratia Rex 
Anglige dominus Hiberniae et 
dux Aquitaniae, dilectis et 
fidelibus suis Johanni de 
Wylughby et Eustachio de 
Burneby salutem. Quia da- 
tum est nobis intelligi quod 
in castro nostro Northamp- 
tonae diversi sunt defectus hiis 
diebus ad grave dampnum 
nostrum et maximum pericu- 
lum ejusdem castri nisi citius 
reparentur. Nos volentes cer- 
tiori in quo statu dictum cas- 
trum nunc existit et qui et 
quot defectus in eodem ut in 
turribus domibus muris ac 
aliis edificiis existunt, et quo 
tempore, et pro cujus vel 
quorum defectum defectus illi 
evenerunt et qualiter et quo 
modo, et de quanto dicti de- 
fectus valeant reparari, as- 
signavimus vos ad inquiren- 



dum per sacramentum probo- 
rum et legalium hominum de 
comitatu Northamptonae per 
quos rei Veritas melius sciri 
poterit super premissis et ea 
tangentibus plenius veritatem. 
Et ideo vobis mandamus quod 
ad ceteros diem et locum quos 
ad hoc provideritis ad castrum 
predictum accedentes castrum 
illud ac defectus in eodem 
supervideatis et inquisicionem 
inde faciatis in forma predicta, 
et earn distincte et apte fac- 
tam nobis sub sigillo vestris 
et sigillis eorum per quos facta 
fuerit sine dilatione mittatis 
et hoc breve. Mandavimus 
enim vicecomiti nostro comi- 
tatus predicti quod ad ceteros 
diem et locum quos ei scire, 
facietis venire faci coram vo- 
bis tot et tales probos et le- 
gates homines de balliva sua 



INQUISITION AS TO THE CASTLE. 



145 



Edward III. was too deeply intent on securing 
the precarious advantages obtained by his father, 



per quos rei Veritas in pre- 
missis melius seiri poterit et 
inquiri. In cujus rei testi- 
monium has litteras nostras 
fieri facimus patentes. Teste 
me ipso apud Ebor. viij. die 
Maii anno regni nostri sexto- 
decimo. Per Thes, nunc Ma- 
gistro Johanne de Hyldesle. 

In dorso. Nos Johannes 
de Wilughby et Eustachius 
de Burneby per sacramentum 
proborum et legalium homi- 
num comitatus Northamp- 
ton ae diligenter inquisivimus 
quicquid tenor hujus mandati 
vestri supponit prout patet 
per inquisicionem inde captam 
et huic vestro mandato con- 
sutam. 

Inquisitio capta coram Jo- 
hannem de Wilughby, et Eu- 
stachium de Burneby, assig- 
natis per commissionem do- 
mini Regis ad inquirendum 
super defectibus castri domini 
Regis Northamptonae, apud 
Northamptonae die Jovis in 
Septuana Pentecostae anno 
regni Regis Edwardo filii 
Rege Edwardo sextodecimo, 
per sacramentum Walteri filii 
Roberti de Da ventre militis, 
Ricardi Mallore, Henrici de 



Bray de Herleston, Walteri 
de Mortuo Maui, Gilberti de 
Etewell, Johannis Dyne de 
Brampton, Roberti de Hau- 
ton, Ricardi Hanred de Pis- 
seford, Walteri le Carpenter 
de Northamptonae, Willielmi 
de Bliseworth, Bartholomaei 
Barre, et Johannis Barre. 
Qui dicunt super sacramen- 
tum suum quod in castro 
Northamptonae magna aula, 
longa camera juxta aulam 
versus Austrum et magna 
camera juxta aulam versus 
Orientem et capella yma ver- 
sus Austrum combusta fue- 
runt tempore domini Ricardi 
de Lemesy quondam custodis 
castri predicti. Que possunt 
emendari in cementeria de 
petra calce sabulo morterio et 
in cariagio de cccc. li. Dicunt 
etiam quod possunt emendari 
videlicet in carpenteria mae- 
remio cariagio et cooptura de 
shingles et aliis necessaria de 
ccl.li. Et quod gutterae ea- 
rundem domorum cum cresta 
et clavis possunt emendari 
cum xxij.li. Et quod hostia 
et fenestrae predictarum do- 
morum possunt emendari in 
ferramento verrura et aliis 



146 



INQUISITION AS TO THE CASTLE. 



and the fairer territories won by his own valour in 
France, to bestow much of his attention on this 



hujusce necessaria cum xxx.li. 
Sm a . dccij.li. 

Dicunt etiam per sacra- 
mentum suum quod camera 
novi turris in predicto castro 
et eciam sex parvi turres in 
circuitu muri castri predicti 
in magna parte fuerunt dirutae 
tempore Nicholai de Segrave 
nuper custodis castri predicti 
et possunt emendari in cemen- 
teria cum x. marcis et eciam 
in carpenteria maeremio et 
cariagio per eisdem cum xl. 
marcis. Et cooptura domo- 
rum et predicorum sex tur- 
rium infra predictum novum 
turrim potest emendari de 
petra et shingles cum xl. 
marcis, et in plumbo pro 
eisdem turribus cum xxviii.li. 
Dicunt eciam quod due sta- 
bule quarum una stat juxta 
coquinam et alia juxta vete- 
rem turrim dirrutae fuerunt 
tempore domini Edwardi 
quondam Regis Angliae patris 
domini Regis nunc, que pos- 
sunt emendari cum xxx. li. 
Dicunt eciam quod ceterae 
domus predicti castri cum 
hostiis et fenestris possunt 
emendari cum xl. marcis. 
Dicunt eciam quod est ibi 



quidam murus super mantel- 
lum predicti castri qui potest 
emendari cum cc.li. Et eciam 
est ibi alius murus debilis 
super predictum castrum inter 
novam portam et novum tur- 
rim, et potest emendari cum 
xx. marcis. Dicunt eciam 
quod sunt ibi due porte de- 
biles una versus gardinum et 
alia infra curiam aule et cu- 
riam Castri et possunt emen- 
dari cum iiij.li. Dicunt eciam 
quod est ibi unum barbicanum 
debile extra portam castri et 
potest emendari cum xl. 
marcis. Dicunt eciam quod 
est ibi quidam vetus turris 
qui vocatur Faukestour qui 
inceptus fuit tempore domini 
Regis Henrici Senioris set de 
quo potest construi vel repa- 
rari ignorant. Dicunt eciam 
quod est ibi quidam fons 
tractabilis ante hostium magne 
aule et dirruta fuit tempore 
Nicholai de Segrave predicti 
et potest emendari cum x. 
marcis. Summa ccciiij. xv. li. 
vj. s. viij. d. Summa totalis 
m e . iiij. xvij. li. vj. s. viij. d. 

In cujus rei testimonium 
predicti juratores presentisln- 
quisicionis sigilla sua appo- 



CASTLE USED AS A PRISON. 147 

quarter of his dominions. The castle remained as 
a prison until nearly the commencement of the last 
century, when it fell into private hands. Hitherto 
we have only mentioned it as a place of defence, as 
one of those unhappy spots where the wretched 
felon and suspected violator of the forest laws lay 
famishing amid the palatial profuseness of the 
proud Plantagenets, and the Christinas luxuries of 
de Breaute, or as the occasional abode of the 
English kings ; but henceforth it opens upon the 
attention with more agreeable as well as more uni- 
versal interest. TTe shall now observe it as a 
place where laws became agitated, pregnant with 
loftier views of responsibility, and where the gene- 
ral march of humanity was accelerated by salutary 
provisions for the regulation of commerce and the 
administration of justice. 

Without perplexing ourselves by a long enquiry 
into the nature of our early legislative assemblies, 
I will merely state as a reason for passing over by 
a rapid enumeration the earlier ones convened at 
Northampton, that it is not until the latter end of 
the reign of Henry III. that we are able to dis- 
cover the rudiments of that popular mode of repre- 

suerunt die et anno supradictis. — Inquis. ad Quod Damnum, 
16 Edw. II. No. 119, apud Turrim. 



148 EARLY CONVENTIONS AND 

sentation existing at present. During the ante- 
cedent period, the spiritual and temporal peers 
were the only persons admitted to the royal coun- 
cils, and their privileges seem to have been very 
indefinitely laid down. On some occasions the 
former outnumbered the latter, on others there was 
a preponderance on the side of the barons, and as 
in the instance of the parliament at Shrewsbury 
during the reign of Edward I., sometimes the 
bishops were not even summoned. Nor are these 
deviations from the general system the only ones 
on record, as we find parallel instances in the 
Cortes of Castile, to which in 1370 and 1373 nei- 
ther the nobles nor the clergy were called. Al- 
though the title of 'parliament' has been freely 
given to several of these early conventions, we 
must not connect them with our modern appli- 
cation of the term, nor suppose that the principle 
of receiving representatives from the community 
was fully recognised. Parliaments were not in 
fact identified with the more ancient forms of the 
British government. This will enable us at once 
to pass over, without discussion, the conferences 
held here between Kobert duke of Normandy and 
his brother Henry I. ; the settlement of the suc- 
cession by the latter prince upon his daughter 



COUNCILS HELD AT NORTHAMPTON. 



149 



Maud; the council held both by Stephen and 
Richard I. ; the convention to try the traitorous 
a Becket, and the ratification of the Constitutions 
of Clarendon. Each of these, historically interest- 
ing, deserves more attention than the present oc- 
casion will suffice to afford, but none taken by 
itself involves directly any point of sufficient con- 
stitutional importance for us to pursue its exami- 
nation further 11 . 



u Of the councils held at 
Northampton, the following 
are the principal. In 1131, 
a great curia, placitum, or 
council, at which were present 
all the "Principes Angliae." 
In 1157, a convention of the 
Praesules, Principes regni, 
eight bishops, twelve abbots, 
and many other foreign and 
English nobility, and "infe- 
rioris ordinis personae." In 
1157, as we are informed by 
Gervase, (p. 1378,) the con- 
vention at Northampton con- 
sisted, besides bishops, of the 
principal persons of the king- 
dom, of abbots, and of some 
persons of an inferior degree. 
They heard on this occasion 
a cause between the arch- 
bishop and the abbot of Can- 
terbury, respecting the latter's 
profession of obedience to the 



former, as the pope had 
commanded. In 1164, when 
Becket was ordered into ban- 
ishment. The parliament was 
held within the great hall of 
the castle, on Thursday, Oct. 
13, when the archbishop was 
accused of various crimes, 
such as perjury, &c, and all 
his moveables were confis- 
cated, for not coming to the 
king's court when cited there 
on the complaint of one who 
thought himself injured by 
him in his own. The second 
day he was accused of having 
£500 of the king's money in 
his hands, and five persons, 
who voluntarily offered them- 
selves to be his sureties, were 
bound for him. The third 
day another larger debt was 
laid to his charge. On the 
fourth day, Saturday, there 



150 



BECKERS TRIAL. 



It was not until the forty-ninth of Henry III. 
(1265), when two knights were first summoned by 



was nothing done except hold- 
ing a consultation. On Sun- 
day Becket did not leave his 
chamber. On Monday when 
summoned he was sick, and 
did not appear. On Tuesday, 
after receiving mass, he came 
into court, and at the entrance 
into the king's chamber within 
the castle, where he was to 
expect the king, he took the 
cross from the bearer, and 
carried it into the chamber 
with his own hands, which 
was highly resented by the 
king, because he seemed to 
come in with it in defiance, 
and this again constituted 
another ground of complaint. 
The ecclesiastics sat apart 
from the nobles, and at last 
agreed to accuse the arch- 
bishop to the pope of perjury, 
engaging themselves before 
the king to do their utmost to 
bring about his deposition, on 
condition that he would ex- 
cuse them from passing judg- 
ment. To this the king as- 
sented, and they then in- 
formed the archbishop they 
were no longer bound to obey 
him, because he was guilty of 
perjury in having broken his 



faith with the king. On the 
following night he secretly 
escaped from the town and 
got to Sandwich, from whence 
he passed over into Flanders. 
An event so remarkable has 
attracted the attention of seve- 
ral annalists, between whose 
various statements there exists 
much discrepancy. A life of 
Becket has recently been writ- 
ten by the Rev. J. Giles, and 
very succinctly also by Thierry 
in his Histoire de la Conquete 
de l'Angleterre par les Nor- 
mands. In 1176, when the 
Constitutions of Clarendon 
were ratified : when the king 
of Scotland attended, and 
besides much other busi- 
ness transacted, the whole 
kingdom was first divided into 
six circuits, and three itine- 
rant judges appointed for 
each. — (Hoveden, p. 1108.) 
In 1177, when Robert earl of 
Leicester and others were re- 
stored to their lands, and the 
canons secular of Waltham 
resigned into the archbishop's 
hands their prebends, that the 
king might there introduce 
canons regular. In 1190,1194, 
1223, and 1224, when Henry 



KNIGHTS FIRST SUMMONED. 



151 



the sheriffs from the counties, and two burgesses 
from the cities or towns, that the outline of our 
actual representative system can be distinctly 
traced. Before this indeed the spirit of lawless 
force was predominant ; the absolute power of the 
crown prevented any thing like national develop- 
ment, and the varied elements of political life and 
freedom had not burst forth into existence. The 
kingdom was now undergoing all those intestine 



was desirous of ascertaining 
the opinion of the kingdom 
respecting a war with France. 
The archbishop of Canter- 
bury and the other pre- 
lates anathematised Fulke de 
Breaute. There was also a 
subsidy granted for making 
machines for the siege of Bed- 
ford castle, the king granting 
a charter that this should not 
be considered a precedent. In 
1227, when a scutage was as- 
sessed of three marcs for each 
knight's fee, by advice of the 
earls and barons summoned 
to Northampton for the pur- 
pose. The archbishops and 
bishops for certain apparent 
reasons were not summoned. 
(Madox, Exchequer, p. 422.) 
In 1265, about the feast 
of, the Apostles Philip and 



James, the king held a parlia- 
ment at Northampton, to which 
were sent solemn messengers, 
(solemnes nuncii,) petitioning 
the king, that he might restore 
them to their former state, 
and that they might be able 
to choose sheriffs for them- 
selves, who should be answer- 
able to the exchequer for the 
ancient fee farm which was 
granted by letters patent, 
dated by the king the 1st of 
May at Northampton, anno 
l mo . — Cronica Maiorum, 85. 
In 1266, to confirm the dic- 
tum of Kenilworth. In 1268, 
1283, 1329, 1336, 1338. At 
Clipstone in 1290. At Ged- 
dington in 1188, to consult 
about a crusade. At the ab- 
bey of Pipewell, now entirely 
destroyed, in 1189. 



152 COUNCIL FAVOUR A CRUSADE. 

miseries which sooner or later enforce upon bad 
governors the necessity of renovation and cure. 
It was in a sadly distracted state when in the 
midst of the general distress and confiscation that 
prevailed, Henry suddenly convoked a great as- 
sembly to meet him at Northampton (1268.) But 
it was not to discuss the wretched condition of his 
subjects, to adopt remedies for alleviating their 
wants, or to conciliate the disaffection of his barons, 
that he issued his writs for the convention. It 
was not a meeting to be confounded with our ideas 
of a parliament, but a mere gathering of the upper 
classes, which should afford the papal legate an op- 
portunity of preaching a crusade; and judging 
from the result, his exertions were far from being 
unsuccessful, since the monarch himself, with a 
large number of the nobility, took up the cross 
and proposed to accompany his sons to the Holy 
Land. 

We are now arrived at a period when the po- 
pular voice was the first time plainly heard in the 
councils of the state, and amongst the earliest of 
those towns enjoying the privilege of sending their 
representatives to parliament, were Northampton 
and Bedford, a right acquired in all probability 
from their being attached to the royal demesnes. 



RISING INFLUENCE OF POPULAR OPINION. 153 

Although various modifications and successive 
changes were henceforward perpetually arising, 
the burgesses appear from the 23rd of Edward I. 
to the present day, to have been legally considered 
both as constituent as well as necessary parts of 
the legislative body. Edward I. died on the 7th 
of August, 1307, at Burgh on Sand, in his last 
expedition against the Scots, and on the 26th of 
the same month, his feeble successor summoned a 
parliament to meet him 'for a special purpose' at 
Northampton x . One of the ostensible reasons for 
the present convention was to make arrangements 
for the funeral of his father. Whatever amount of 
incapacity or moral obloquy may have attached 
itself to the character of Edward of Caernarvon, it 
can scarcely be said that filial affection was a 
virtue in which he was deficient. The perform- 
ance, however, of the melancholy solemnities so 
naturally due to the memory of the late king, was 
not the sole reason for parliament meeting so im- 
mediately after his death, since the writs, our chief 
source of information, (the rolls of its proceedings 

x On the 6th October, 1307, king's household to provide 

an entry occurs on the Issue for his office in the hall of 

roll of the Exchequer, of Northampton castle, against 

ten marks paid to John de the coming of the king there, 

Eggleshale, a valet of the p. 118. 



154 NECESSITIES OF THE CROWN 

having, like most of those of the reign, become 
lost,) further mention, as subjects for discussion, 
the new sovereign's coronation, and his espousals 
with Isabella of France. There was another latent 
motive for its convocation, one involving more 
important political rights. The active reign just 
ended had left the young prince surrounded with 
difficulties, against which he was in every way un- 
equal to contend. The discontentment of his 
barons, the increasing demands of the pope, the 
long and expensive wars in which his ancestors had 
been engaged, now bequeathed as a legacy upon 
his impoverished exchequer, had to be provided 
for, not as formerly from the private revenues of 
the crown, but to be supported by extraordinary 
grants from the people. The personal resources of 
the king had gradually become lavished away, and 
we thus trace the earliest causes of the diminishing 
power of the royal prerogative, as well as the sub- 
sequent influence of the national voice in regulat- 
ing taxation. The three estates of Parliament as- 
sembled at Northampton on the 13th of October y, 

r The Liberate rolls of this orders to bailiffs to pay to 

year contain no mention of Nicholas de Segrave the 

Northampton whatever, but constable, sixty pounds for 

the Close rolls of the same repairs of walls and buildings 

time have entries recording of the castle — also to fortify 



INDUCE AN EXTENSION OF LIBERTY. 



155 



four months before the king was actually crowned, 
and did not entirely separate until the beginning 



the castle, for better security 
and safety of the people — also 
to repair walls and paling of 
the park. (Rot. Claus. 1 
Edw. II.) On the Patent 
roll 18 John, there is an order 
for the payment of arrears 
and wages due to the king's 
servants in garrison of the 
castles of Northampton and 
Rockingham, so that they 
might have no reason to leave 
the king's service. 

A grant of murage to 
endure for three years had 
been previously made in the 
9th of Henry, by a deed 
tested on the 24th December 
at Brackley, but it did not 
specify the customs so mi- 
nutely as the one just referred 
to. These privileges were re- 
peated in the 4th and 29th of 
Edw. I., as well as in the 
2nd of Henry IV. The grant 
of 29 Edward I. authorizes 
them to endure for live years, 
and among many additional 
imposts which it permits to be 
levied, occur tolls upon every 
worsted cloth which is called 
coverlit, upon linen web of 
Aylesham, garments of cendle 
worked quilted, salted fish, 



lampreys (one penny per 
dozen) and bales of cordovan. 
Rot. Pat. 29 Edw. I. m. 1. 
It was probably from sup- 
posing that because murage 
tolls were allowed for only a 
limited period, that a few 
years ago the right of the 
corporation to claim any tolls 
was called into dispute. The 
result of the trial, Lancum 
versus Lovell, in the Court of 
Common Pleas, Feb. 21, 22, 
1832, before Chief Justice 
Tindal, for ascertaining the 
right of the mayor, bailiffs and 
burgesses, to take certain tolls 
in the town, fully established 
the custom of the borough. 

At so early a period as the 
3rd of Edw. III., (1329,) some 
of these customs had been dis- 
puted, and the bailiffs of the 
town were presented for taking 
unjust tolls as well at the fairs 
as at other times, whereas 
' nothing used to be taken 
out of fair time, and then 
from dealers only, and not 
from those who bought cattle 
for stock. And they took 
from Thomas de Skalford, 
who sold one ox, one penny, 
and likewise from the pur- 



156 



PREROGATIVE AND TAXATION 



of the following year 2 . It was in the twenty-fifth 
year of the preceding reign, about twelve years 
before this time, that the laws exacting pecuniary 
aids from the subject, first became clearly defined : 



chaser thereof they took toll 
to the great oppression of the 
people.' For these excesses 
they afterwards paid a fine to 
the crown. Placita Coronse, 
3 Edw. III. roll 10. The 
same year the inhahitants of 
Slipton complained that they 
were tolled for carts passing 
through their own village, 
(Placita Coronae, 3 Edw. III.' 
roll 51,) and other complaints 
were made by the men of the 
county, (id. m. 70.) The 
same records also give the 
examination of an undue exer- 
cise of justice upon male- 
factors within the town of 
Northampton, under the plea 
of having the right of infan- 
genthef for the power of exe- 
cuting death on malefactors. 
Also that there were four 
coroners when the mayor and 
bailiffs confessed one was in 
a general way sufficient. In 
consequence of these various 
complaints, Robert de Ar- 
derne was appointed custos of 
the town, by a writ tested by 
the king at Kenilworth, 7th 



Dec.,(Originalia,3Edw.III.,) 
and two coroners and two 
bailiffs were deputed to dis- 
charge the duties appropri- 
ately belonging to each office. 
Placita Coronas, 3 Edw. III. 
v. 71. Robert de Arderne 
to hold the same for the crown, 
and for Queen Isabella, Ed- 
ward's mother, which farm she 
had received at her son's 
appointment. (Originalia, 3 
Edw. III.) 

z It was at this period that 
diplomatic and official rela- 
tions began to be established 
betwixt European and Asiatic 
nations; mongols of distinc- 
tion visited some of the chief 
cities of Spain, France, and 
Italy, and during the present 
parliament an answer was sent 
to the king of Tartary in re- 
turn for his friendly embassy. 
See Rymer, vol. ii. p. 8. new 
edition, and Memoires sur 
les Relations Politicoes des 
Princes Chretiens avec les 
Empereurs Mongols. Vol. ii. 
Mem., pp. 154—157. 



BECOMING MORE DEFINED. 157 

nevertheless they continued for a length of time to 
press with unequal force upon the rising energies 
of the people, and in illustration of this, we find in 
the transactions now under review, that whilst the 
clergy and the burgesses contributed in this Parlia- 
ment a fifteenth from the towns, the knights 
granted from the counties a twentieth of their 
moveables, to prosecute the war against the Scots. 
Other important matters were for the first time 
settled by this parliament; such as the terms of 
the coronation oath, and the oath tendered to the 
representatives upon taking their seats. By the 
general tenor of the latter, more especially in its 
fourth and sixth clauses, every precaution seems to 
have been taken to support and strengthen the 
royal prerogative, whilst the provisions of the for- 
mer not only recognised the limitation of the royal 
power by existing laws, but that the power of 
altering those laws and enacting others, could only 
be exercised with the consent of the 'comniu- 
naute/ or the lords and commons assembled in 
parliament. On the present occasion, then, we 
witness the conflicting elements of the English 
government balanced against each other with the 
nicest appreciation of their relative value, those 
mighty parts formerly brought together in such 



158 REFERENCE TO ANTIQUITY 

discordant and hostile collision, now firmly ce- 
mented in peaceful union, and the entire fabric 
laid on so wide a basis, that not only may it be 
said, the constitution was for the first time securely 
established, but that however much corruption in 
the elective franchise, municipal abuses, or natural 
decay, may have deformed its fair proportions in 
the lapse of succeeding ages, a reformation and 
cure has always been found for them by recurring 
to the pure spirit of these early principles. 

The parliament again assembled at Northampton 
in the second year of the succeeding reign (1328), 
meeting immediately after the one summoned to 
York, in consequence of several of the represent- 
atives being absent on that occasion. No consti- 
tutional questions came under review; these, in- 
deed, had been pretty generally fixed in the pre- 
ceding reigns as they now stand, but much business 
of a momentous character occupied attention. In 
the first place, the writs of summons prohibited 
tournaments, and the appearance of that tumultuous 
retinue of armed men which had usually attended 
upon these occasions. The representatives were 
thus enabled to carry on their deliberations with- 
out distraction, personal fear, or restraint a . Here 

a As these exhibitions were extremely popular with the 



FAVOURABLE TO MODERN PROGRESS. 159 

both the origin and authority is found for that re- 
solution of the Long Parliament (1645) forbidding 
the appearance of the military at an election, ' as a 
high infringement of the liberties of the subject, 
and an open defiance of the laws and constitutions 
of this kingdom f a resolution subsequently esta- 
blished by act of parliament, (8th George II.) 
The Scottish convention and a treaty of peace were 
confirmed at the present meeting, the preliminary 
of a commercial intercourse with Flanders settled, 
the first annual payment made of Queen Philippa's 
dowry, and power given to the bishops of Worces- 
ter and Chester to demand and ask for, in the 
king's name, the right and possession of the king- 
dom of France. Amongst other business also now 
transacted was the custody of the great seal, which 
was transferred from the keeping of Master Henry 



generality of the nation, they Thus tournaments were pro- 
attracted large concourses of hibited in the 4th, 5th, and 
people, and consequently oc- 17th of Edw. II. On the 
casioned great tumult, and last year however, notwith- 
confusion. Hence we find standing the general prohibi- 
them frequently prohibited, tion, one was allowed at 
and more especially on those Northampton, but after this 
occasions when the great peo- tournament, no one should 
pie of the realm were called hold another in any part of 
together to deliberate on the kingdom. (Rot. Pat. 17 
affairs concerning the state. Edw. II. p. 1. m. 16.) 



160 FIRST STATUTE OF NORTHAMPTON. 

de Clyf and William de Herlaston, to Henry de 
Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln. This transfer was 
publicly made by the king himself, in the presence 
of several of the nobility, immediately after the 
celebration of mass, in a certain chapel of the 
priory of St. Andrew, and the same document 
states that the keeper used it in sealing briefs the 
next day. It appears from a subsequent docu- 
ment, printed in the Foedera, that the custody of 
the great seal was again changed by the king 
taking it himself on Sunday the 15th of January 
following (1329), in a certain chamber where 
Queen Isabella was lodged, in the same priory, 
and he retained it till Thursday, when he restored 
it to the bishop in the presence of his lords, in the 
garden of the prior of Newenham, near Bedford. 
In this parliament was enacted the first statute 
of Northampton. It commenced by confirming 
the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest. 
By subsequent clauses the pardon of felons was 
placed on a better system, and the administration 
of justice carried on under less restraint, since all 
persons were forbidden to present themselves armed 
before the royal ministers. Sundry provisions were 
made relative to the delivery of writs to the sheriffs; 
legal officers were appointed to enquire into rob- 



FREE TRADE ESTABLISHED. 161 

beries, manslaughter, theft, oppressions, conspira- 
cies and grievances, as well by Lke servants of the 
crown as by others ; justice was not to be delayed 
at the bidding of the great or little seal; the 
county cess was put on an improved footing, and 
all staples were to cease. In the various pro- 
visions of this admirable statute of Northampton, 
there is the highest regard evinced for individual 
liberty ; the crown itself is limited in its interfer- 
ence with the equal course of justice, its powers 
being confined, by the terms of the royal oath, to 
granting charters of pardon for offenders. The 
criminal law was much amended by these and 
other regulations; aristocratic influence in gaol- 
deliveries was checked; the common rights of the 
people were carefully respected. Xor is it unde- 
serving observation that in abolishing those mer- 
cantile monopolies which had sprung up in the 
late reigns, how clearly the parliament understood 
their injurious tendency, whilst, to shew how re- 
pugnant it thought them to be to the earlier theory 
of the constitution, the present statute allowed 
" merchants, strangers, and others to go and come 
with their merchandise into England after the 
tenor of the Great Charter" of the 17th of John. 
So jealously watched and guarded indeed was the 

M 



162 THIRD PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLES. 

freedom of commerce during Edward III/s reign, 
that, independently of the present statute, a full 
recognition of its unfettered principles was set 
forth in the preamble and first clause of the tenth 
parliament held at York, (9th Edward III. 1335.) 
It would be opening the subject far too wide were 
I to mention in this enquiry the various occasions 
when royalty visited the town of Northampton, 
and I have merely noticed the foregoing incident, 
amongst many, to shew how frequent those visits 
formerly were, and to furnish some kind of idea of 
the business habits of the period, and the simple 
modes of regal life. The parliament opened its 
sittings on April 24th, and did not conclude them 
until the 21st of May, during the whole of which 
time Edward III. remained here. 

In the twelfth year of his reign, when the third 
parliament assembled at Northampton, we find him 
actively engaged in prosecuting his claims upon 
the kingdom of Philip of Valois ; and in pursuing 
this favourite object of his ambition he spent much 
of the early period of his life on the continent. 
He was now on the eve of embarking upon one of 
these expeditions, but previously to his departure 
he addressed writs to the usual persons, informing 
them that he had appointed Edward his eldest son 



LAST PARLIAMENT MEETS. 163 

keeper of the realm during his absence, and sum- 
moned them to attend a great council at North- 
ampton on the morrow after St. James the Apostle, 
(July 26, 1338.) The writs were tested on the 
15 th of June, and the parliament was duly con- 
vened at the appointed time; the king himself, 
however, sailed for the continent a few days before 
it met. One of the monarch's first acts on reach- 
ing Antwerp was to address an order to the great 
ecclesiastics, revoking the power he had confided 
to them to treat of peace with Philip of Valois as 
king of France. Meanwhile his son, the Black 
Prince, effectually urged the Parliament to supply 
the necessary aids for carrying on the campaign 
abroad. This, with a few regulations for victual- 
ling the royal castles of Scotland, and some acts of 
minor consequence, brought the session to a close 
at the end of about ten days b . 

The last parliament at Northampton was sum- 
moned for the 5th of November, in the fourth year 
of Richard II. Most of the great officers of state 
assembled at the appointed time, by order of the 
council, in a chamber of St. Andrew's priory, where 

b After the king had sailed, important affairs, which was 

a council of merchants, four no doubt concerning the 

of the richest and most dis- means of raising supplies for 

creet from each county, were the war. — Rymer, vol. ii. p. ii. 

summoned to deliberate on p. 105!. 



164 DIFFICULTY OF ASSEMBLING. 

they heard read the great charter of English liber- 
ties, but after waiting in vain for some time the 
arrival of the other representatives, who were de- 
terred from attending in consequence of the heavy 
rain and floods, it was agreed to adjourn the par- 
liament until the following Thursday, the members 
being permitted to retire in the meanwhile to their 
hostels for their ease. The roads had been ren- 
dered so impassable by the bad weather that it was 
with considerable difficulty the king reached his 
manor of Moulton, where he was lodged, in the 
immediate neighbourhood to the town. 

Richard II., now in his fifteenth year, met the 
parliament in person on the 8th of November. It 
was not a very numerous convention, as several of 
the nobility were still detained on business in the 
marches of Scotland. The chancellor, (Simon de 
Sudbury, archbishop of Canterbury,) on the part of 
the king, opened the proceedings by stating the 
motives that had induced him to call this parlia- 
ment together, how desirous he felt. that the liber- 
lies of the Church and the peace of the realm 
should be maintained and guarded; he next re- 
ferred to the matter with which he was charged by 
the king, saying emphatically , " Sirs, it cannot be 

c This speech and the proceedings of the parliament are in 
Norman French. 



chancellor's energetic speech. 165 

a tiling unknown to you, how that nobleman the 
earl of Buckingham, with a great number of other 
great lords, knights, esquires, and other good gen- 
tlemen of the realm, whom may God save by His 
mercy, are now in the service of our lord the 
king and his realm in the parts of France, upon 
which enterprise the king has expended as much 
as you have granted him in the last parliament, 
and beyond this grant, much from his private re- 
sources ; and what is more, he has greatly contri- 
buted from his own substance for the expedition 
against Scotland, and for the defence and succour 
of his lieges in Guienne, and for the last debts due 
to the earl of March for Ireland, as well as in other 
ways ; he has pledged the greater part of his jewels, 
which are at the point of being lost, and you may 
observe how the subsidy of wool is the cause of the 
present riot in Flanders ; nothing, in effect, is re- 
served : the wages of the troops in the marches of 
Calais, Brest, and Cherbourg are in arrears more 
than a quarter and a half, in consequence of which 
the castles and fortresses of the king are in such 
great peril, that the soldiers are on the point of 
departing. Be well assured that neither our lord 
the king, nor any other Christian monarch is able 
to endure such charges without the aid of the com- 



166 chancellor's energetic speech. 

munity; and moreover, consider how deeply the 
king is indebted, how the crown jewels, as it is 
said, are at the point of being forfeited, how he is 
bound by covenant to pay the earl of Buckingham 
and his companions, what outrageous expenses he 
will be put to in guarding the sea-coasts nearest 
Prance next season, so that the malice of the 
enemy may be better resisted than it was before, 
when, as you are well aware, they wrought such 
grievous damage and villainy against the state. 
Will you counsel our lord the king, and shew him 
what better provision can be made to meet these 
difficulties, and how the kingdom may be defended 
more securely against its enemies by land and sea. 
Be pleased to deliberate on this as soon as you are 
able, to the end that you may speedily render his 
majesty, these nobles, and yourselves, that effectual 
assistance which is necessary." With such weighty 
arguments the chancellor opened the present par- 
liament, adding also, at the close of his speech, 
that the king both wished and commanded all 
persons who had any grievance which could not be 
redressed without the interposition of parliament, 
that they should present their petitions to the 
clerks of chancery appointed to receive them, who 
would hand them over to the prelates for judgment. 



RESISTANCE OF THE COMMONS. 167 

After this address, they all departed to their re- 
spective hostels, and on the morrow consulted to- 
gether in the new dormitory of the priory, on the 
business he had propounded. A lengthened debate 
ensued, in the course of which Sir John Gilders- 
burgh, who was deputed by the commons, declared 
they were very poor, and unable to bear any fur- 
ther charge ; that the present demands of £160,000 
were outrageous and insupportable, and prayed 
that the prelates and lords would treat by them- 
selves, and set forth the ways by which a reason- 
able sum, at less distress to the people, might be 
levied and collected. After considerable discussion 
and mutual conference, the commons proposed that 
if the clergy, who occupied one-third of the king- 
dom, would support one-third of the charge, they 
would grant £100,000, so that the laity should be 
rated at 100,000 marks and the clergy at 50,000. 
Upon this the clergy replied, with less liberality 
than adherence to legal precedent, that their grant 
was never made in parliament, neither ought to be ; 
that the laity neither ought nor had the power to 
bind the clergy, nor the clergy the laity, but that if 
any ought to be free, it was themselves ; praying 
moreover, that the liberty of Holy Church might 
be saved to them entirely, and that what the com- 
mons deemed fit to perform, they would certainly 



168 SECOND STATUTE OF NORTHAMPTON. 

do the like themselves. The commons then im- 
posed a capitation tax on all the laity, male and 
female, above fifteen years old, of three groats, very 
beggars only excepted, which, with the sudden 
emancipation of the serfs in the following parlia- 
ment, was the occasion of the insurrection under 
"Wat Tyler and Jack Straw the next year. The 
same kind of revolt had, from a similar enlarge- 
ment of their liberties, broken out amongst the 
French peasantry some time previously. 

This question being at last settled, parliament 
proceeded with the minor objects of its meeting. 
From these I shall only select three for especial 
mention, and two of them are chosen simply from 
having a more peculiar local interest than the rest. 
The first entitled to notice is the passing of the 
second statute of Northampton, an act enforc- 
ing the gauging of all foreign wines, and proclaim- 
ing the terms of the royal pardon for escaped 
felons. The next is the trial of Sir Rauf de Fer- 
riers, on suspicion of having entered into a trea- 
sonable correspondence with Charles VI., and se- 
veral influential persons in the kingdom of France d . 

d An entry on the Issue him "before the parliament at 

roll of the Exchequer, gives Northampton, there to answer 

the expense of seeking out a concerning certain articles, 

certain clerk, Ralph de Fer- 10s., (p. 215,) and in the suc- 

rers, in London, and bringing ceeding year a payment of 



PRIEST OF BRINGTON IMPRISONED. 169 

Many letters so addressed, and sealed with his seal, 
had been picked up, and upon this supposition of 
his treachery the charge was founded. He under- 
went numerous examinations, and on all these 
occasions firmly declared his innocency. Yet at 
length he was recommitted to prison ; and one Sir 
Thomas, parson of the church of Brington in the 
county of Northampton, and certain others who 
were intimately acquainted with him, and the poor 
mendicant who found the letters in question, toge- 
ther with the mayor of London to whom he had 
given them, were summoned to come before par- 
liament for examination. It now turned out that 
the correspondence was a forgery of the mendi- 
cant's, who in his turn was consigned to prison, 
and Sir Rauf, who was the patron of the living, 
and Sir Thomas, the parson of Brington, were set 
at large. The third point that has struck me as 
curious, was the issue of a sumptuary writ from 
Westminster, a month before the parliament as- 
sembled, both to ensure the proper supply and to 
regulate the price of provisions betwixt that place 

61. 13s. 4d. was made to Ni- was held there, to the priory 

cholas Adam, the king's ser- of Durham, to place Sir Ralph 

jeant at arms, lately sent by de Ferrers under arrest at the 

the king's command from the said priory, and to cause him 

town of Northampton, during to appear at the said parlia- 

the time the last parliament ment. — Id., p. 219. 



170 SUMPTUARY WRIT OF EXPENSES. 

and Northampton, when the representatives were 
on their journey thither, and writs of this nature 
were addressed in anticipation of their wants to 
the bailiffs of Barnet, St. Alban's, Dunstable, Wo- 
burn, Newport Pagnell and Stony Stratford. 

The commons finally besought the king to con- 
firm the great charter of liberties, the charter of 
the forest, the statutes ordained for peace, and the 
statutes of labourers, the statutes of false accusers, 
and all the other statutes and good laws ; to lessen 
the grievous and insupportable burden of war, and 
to expend the present levies solely on the defence 
of the realm; and lastly, they prayed for relief 
from the payment of those large sums which had 
annually been taken by the pope from the English 
Church, and begged him to provide a remedy for 
such hateful exactions. And thus, having sat for 
thirty-two days, the parliament closed its latest de- 
liberations within this town, deliberations of which 
it may be truly said, that we hardly know upon 
which to fix our highest praise, since they are alike 
distinguished by wisdom and moderation, by a 
jealous regard for the national honour and internal 
justice, and for breathing that unselfish and lofty 
spirit which is the truest test and safeguard of 
English freedom. 



CONSTABLES OF THE CASTLE. 171 

CONSTABLES OF NORTHAMPTON 
CASTLE. 

1175. Humphrey de Bohun e . 

Simon de Pateshull. 
1203. P. de Stokes, appointed constable and 

moneyer, in 1206 f . 
1206. Walter de Preston *. 
1208. Robert de Braybroc \ 
1215. Richard Marshall 1 . 

1215. Roger de Neville k . 

1216. Fulke de Breaute 1 . By writ the 2nd of 
May, and enforced by a second under the private 
and public seal on the 19th of the same month m . 

1216. William Aindre 11 . 

1253. John De Grey . 

1255. William de Insula p. 

1278. Thomas de Ardern a . 

e Rot. Pip. 20 Hen. II. turn suum Norhamtoniae, cum 

f Rot. Pat p. 30. custodia Honoris Peverelli in 

S Id. p. 67. eosdem Comilatu custodienda 

h Id. p. 84. quamdiu Regi placuerit ; et 

1 Id. p. 131. reddet pro proficuo Comita- 

* Id. p. 146. tus cxx.l. et custodiet Cas- 

1 Id. p. 179. trum ad custum suum pro- 

m Id. p. 183. prium, et perficiet Corpus 

n Rot. Claus. p. 267. Comitatus, et habebit exitus 

Lit. Antiq.in Turr. Lond. praedicti honoris. — Memor. et 

442 a. Orig. 40 Hen. III. 

? Rex commissit W. de ( i Abbr. Rot. Orig. p. 32. 

Insula Castrum et Comita- 



172 CONSTABLES OF THE CASTLE. 

1279. Robert le Band*. 

1307. Pagan Tibetot. Justiciary of the Royal 

Forests beyond the Trent, and constable s . 
1307. Nicolas de Segrave*. 

1315. John de Ashston u . 

1316. John de Houby*. 

1319. John de Whitelburyy. 

1320. Ralph Basset of Drayton 2 . 

Richard de Lemesy a . 

1323. John Daundelyn b . 
1331. Thomas de Button . 

William de Pillarton, vallet of the king's 

buttery d . 

Eustace de Brunneby e . 

1331. Thomas Wake of Blisworth f . 
1333. William LoveR 

1335. Thomas de Buckton h . 

1257. 

,~^" Ralph Basset of Sapcote 1 . 

1262. 

1263. John Lovell of Titchmarsh K 

1252. John Grey of Wilton*. 

r Id. p. 34. c Id. ii. p. 4. 

8 Id. p. 154. d Id. p. 10. 

1 Id. p. 157. e Id. p. 21. 

™ Id. p. 222. f Id. p. 30. 

x Id. p. 233. t Id. p. 68. 

y Id. p. 252. h Id. p. 83. 

z Id. p. 255. * Dugdale's Baronetage, p. 
a Inq. ad Q. D., 16 Ed. II., 382. 

No. 119. J Id. p. 558. 

b Id. p. 278. k Id. p. 712. 



1266. 
1266. 
1268. 
1307. 
1307. 
1320. 
1363. 
1370. 
1380. 
1405. 



CONSTABLES OF THE CASTLE. 

Alan Zouchof Ashby 1 . 

Reginald Grey of Wilton m . 

Nicholas Segrave n . 

Payn Tibetot . 

Ralph Basset of Drayton p. 

Richard Wy devilled 

John Wy deville r . 
Richard Wydeville 8 . 



173 



1 Id. p. 689. 
m Id. p. 713. 
» Id. p. 675. 
° Id. p. 39. 



p Id. p. 380. 
i Id. p. 230. 
r Id. p. 230. 
8 Id. p. 230. 




Queen Eleanor's Cross. 




HE sepulchral monument to 
the memory of Queen Eleanor 
in the immediate vicinity of 
Northampton naturally de- 
mands that a section should 
be devoted to it in the pre- 
sent volume. This beauti- 
ful work stands on a well selected spot about a 
mile distant from the town, and is placed on an 
eminence partially hidden by a grove of silver 
beeches on the east, but exposed to the public 
road on the opposite side. It pleasantly overlooks 
the town, and being readily accessible by a care- 
fully constructed causeway, (some portion of which 
as will be seen hereafter is coeval,) it becomes an ob- 
ject inducing frequent observation, even when per- 
sons are not led to examine it with a critical eye 
for its fair proportions and intrinsic merits as a 
work of architecture. It may however be doubted, 
whether or not the casual bystander as he casts his 
eyes over the verdant valley of the Nene beneath 
does not regard the cheerful landscape rather as 




fT i^r^i 









S3 






Iff 



if^ 1 ": 






ALL ART REALLY SYMBOLICAL. 175 

the mere background of the picture before him, 
and strives to concentrate his thoughts upon this 
object of human skill alone, viewing it as a labour 
of dignified conception, rich in the manifold variety 
of its ornaments, and tending by its purity of de- 
sign to withdraw his thoughts from the moving 
scenes and agitation of life, to the tranquil medi- 
tation of the motive which inspired its erection. 

There is in truth an inner sight given to the 
mind of man by which such creations are to be 
viewed, and in proportion as the sensibility is 
quickened he will find them exercising a power 
over the intellectual faculties ; and our perception 
of external beauty, and the emotions awakened by 
the refined workings of our silent contemplation, 
will become blended with ideas that are devotional. 
Such monuments of art are however only thus in- 
fluential where there is a general mental cultiva- 
tion, or where long study of good models has pre- 
disposed the imagination for their reception. The 
half clad peasant whilst resting under the morning 
shadow cast by its foliated canopies, looks upwards 
and sees nothing but a well-wrought pile of stone, 
whilst a more trained eye, rising above mere mate- 
rial and its forms, perceives a work on which fancy 
has left the stamp of elegance and genius. Others, 



176 CONJUGAL AFFECTION OF EDWARD I. 

unconsciously to themselves, led by nobler sensa- 
tions, would detect a still more sacred charm ming- 
ling itself with their thoughts. 

But any attempt to express the varied impulse 
which is given to the mind according to its sus- 
ceptibility of pleasure, awe or admiration, must be 
tame and lifeless. Since to give appropriate utter- 
ance to those feelings to which the sight of Queen 
Eleanor's cross gives rise, we should become trans- 
formed into the architect who planned, or into the 
sculptor who carved her statues, or else seek to 
borrow the imagination of the designer, ere we can 
faithfully pourtray a monument so peculiarly chaste 
and impressive. 

One of the most commonly known facts con- 
nected with the personal history of Edward the 
First, is his affectionate attachment to Eleanor 
of Navarre, and as few kings have left behind 
them so high a reputation for prudence and valor, 
so have none exceeded him in attachment and 
tenderness for their queen. No uncertain charm of 
endearment bound together these royal hearts ; no 
false lustre shone from their union. Whilst the 
active spirit of the monarch brings him more pro- 
minently forward than any of the Plantagenets, 
his virtues also lead us to bestow upon him more 



queen Eleanor's character. 177 

unvarying regard. Nor is our interest in Eleanor 
lessened through the favourable light in which 
Edward himself is represented in history. There 
is unfortunately but little known of her personal 
character; that little is however associated with 
no equivocal reputation. She never, says one who 
lias carefully studied the concluding period of her 
history, swerved from the position which fortune 
assigned her, nor failed to perform the gentle and 
peaceful duties which belonged to it. 

In the year 1254 Edward celebrated his marriage 
at Burgos with Eleanor the daughter of Alphonso 
king of Castile. She did not immediately come 
over to England, the affairs of the sovereignty of 
Guienne, which had been quietly conceded by her 
brother, requiring her husband's attention, and it 
was not until the month of October, 1255, that 
she reached London, preceding him a month or 
more on his return home. The exigencies of 
Henry the Third were so pressing that he could 
only settle a small dowry on the new bride. A 
thousand pounds a year, arising from the rents of 
the castle of Grantham, and Tickill, with those of 
the village and castle of the Peak, was all her 
marriage portion 1 . Edward it is true now pos- 

fc Rymer, vol. i. p. 304. 

N 



178 prince edward's revenues. 

sessed the territory of Guienne, but it is doubtful 
whether it produced any revenue. It must rather 
be considered therefore as the peaceful restoration 
of a long contested prize than as in reality the 
source of annual wealth u . He also had assigned 
to him nearly the whole of Ireland, the county of 
Chester, and his father's conquests on the Welsh 
borders x . Even, if received, these possessions were 
not calculated to bring in more than fifteen thousand 
marks, a trifling sum to support the dignity of a 
future successor to the throne. The prince might 
therefore have been led by other motives than 
merely military glory, or a zeal to drive the infidels 
from the holy sepulchre, when he subsequently 
espoused the cause of the crusades. 

After the conclusion of the baronial wars, 
Edward received the cross from the hands of the 
papal legate, (1268,) and so intent was he upon 
this enterprise, that he mortgaged the revenues 
of Guienne for a term of seven years, to accom- 
plish the object of his ambition. During the 
whole of this absence from England the princess 
attended him, and it is no wonder that love so un- 
alterable and self denying should find a strong 
return from so generous hearted a king. The 

u Rymer, vol. i. p. 297. x Ibid. 



HAPPINESS OF THE ROYAL PAIR. 179 

breath of slander has been silent regarding this 
happy union, and there cannot be any reason for 
doubting that during a period of thirty- six years 
their lives were crowned with perpetual happiness. 
Such a course of unmixed felicity is far from being 
universal at any time, but at a period when the 
wildness of passion received but little reproof 
from the guardians of public virtue, this unusual 
exception to the general habits of licentiousness 
stands out in bright relief from the corruptions 
and profligacy of the age y . 

We scarcely hear of Queen Eleanor after her 
return from the Holy Land. Historians speak 

y As a proof of their do- supplies me with this fact, 
mestic happiness we learn states that during this union 
from a roll preserved in the of thirty- six years they had 
Exchequer, that in 1286 Ed- never been separated, except- 
ward made her a new year's ing for a few months while 
gift, of a cup of gold, weigh- the prince was a prisoner in 
ing three marks and a half, the hands of the earl of Lei- 
worth twenty-three pounds, cester. The king's letter to 
six shillings and eight-pence: the abbot of Clugny desiring 
and on the feast of the Cir- prayers for the soul of her 
cumcision he presented her a u whom living he loved dearly, 
pitcher of gold, enamelled and and whom dead he shall never 
set with precious stones, which cease to love," shews the sin- 
was purchased of "Wm. Far- cerity of his grief before he 
ringdon, goldsmith of London. had commenced those beau- 
Manners and Household Ex- tiful memorials of affection 
penses of England, p. lxix. which have placed it beyond 

The same authority that suspicion. 



180 queen Eleanor's death. 

of the magnificent ceremony displayed at her 
coronation, and then she disappears from the 
scene altogether, until within a few days be- 
fore her death 2 . This event happened at the 
house of Richard de Weston, at Harby, in Not- 
tinghamshire, on November 28, 1290. Her bow- 
els were interred in the cathedral of Lincoln on 
the 2nd of December, and the king, who had set 
out from London with the intention of holding a 
Parliament at Clipstone, and of afterwards going to 
the North, now sorrowfully attended the remains of 
his lamented consort, returning by slow stages 
towards the metropolis. The account given by the 
annalist of Dunstable of the circumstances attend- 
ing the arrival of the funeral train at his monas- 
tery, represents generally w 7 hat occurred at every 
place where the procession halted a . After noticing 

z On the 28th Oct. there is king of Arragon had sent over 
a payment of one mark to to her. lb. lxxi. The Great 
Henry of Montpellier, ' for Roll of the Pipe also mentions 
syrup and other medicines Master Simon the Surgeon, 
purchased at Lincoln for the who might have been called 
queen's use.' Master Leo- in, as he received an annual 
pard is also mentioned as her fee of xv. I. for his services, 
physician, to whom was be- (Mag. Rot. Pip. 13 Edw. I.) 
queathed 20 marks by the a I take this in the lan- 
queen's will. She also gave guage of the previous au- 
a cup worth 12 marks and a thority, as it would be dim- 
half to a doctor whom the cult to represent the facts i» 



FUNERAL SOLEMNITIES AT DUNSTABLE. 181 

the death of the queen, he says, ' her body passed 
through our town, and rested one night. And two 
precious cloths, to wit, baudekyns, were given 
unto us. Of wax we had eighty pounds and more. 
And when the body of the said queen was depart- 
ing from Dunstable, the bier rested in the centre 
of the market-place until the king's chancellor and 
the great men then and there present had marked 
a fitting place where they might afterwards erect, 
at the royal expense, a cross of wonderful size. 
Our prior being then present and sprinkling holy 
water/ Eleanor was buried at the feet of Henry 
the Third in Westminster Abbey, on the 10th of 
December, and on the 12th of the same month her 
heart was deposited in the church of the Black 
Friars, in London, where a chapel seems to have 
been afterwards constructed for its reception 5 . 

The monuments of both Edward and Eleanor 
display a physiognomy entirely unmarked by any 

a more simple and perspicu- ensuing month Edward lived 

ous manner, and I feel assured in seclusion at Ashridge, and 

the reader will regret with on the 4th of January caused 

myself that the valuable In- a precept to be issued to the 

troduction to Mr. Botfield's abbot of Clugny, ordering 

contribution to the Roxburgh masses to be celebrated for 

Club is not more generally the benefit of her soul. See 

accessible. the writ in R/ymer, vol. i. 

b During the whole of the p. 743. 



182 



MONUMENTS OF KING EDWAKD 





Statues of Queen FJeanor from the 



of those disagreeable features peculiar to the coun- 
tenances of the haughty and vicious. There is 
nothing but dignity and thought, yet thought 
mingled with earnestness and penetration, depicted 
in the face of the monarch ; nothing but serenity 
and gentleness of soul beams in the soft and re- 
signed expression of his consort. This same feeling 
of gracefulness and repose is observable in all of 
Eleanor's statues, and was unquestionably the 
faithful reflexion of their reality. The rolls con- 
taining the expenditure of the executors to her 
will, account both for the excellence of the design 



AND QUEEN ELEANOK. 



183 





Monumental Cross at ^orthainpton. 



and tlie similarity of countenance which pervades 
all these representations, since there is an entry 
for bringing seven hundred and twenty-six pounds 
of wax from the house of Torel, who designed 
the effigy at Westminster; and from this it may 
be inferred that he made a model, from which in 
some instances he wrought himself, and as in the 
example of the figures on the cross near North- 
ampton, employed Alexander of Abingdon, and 
William of Ireland, on the work. No account 
has been hitherto found of the expenses of erect- 
ing the cross at Geddington, but it may be suffi- 



184 MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE 

cient to state in corroboration of the preceding 
remarks, that the three figures of Eleanor upon this 
monument exhibit a similar cast of countenance 
to the others. There exists the same elegance of 
outline, and skilful arrangement of drapery, thus 
evidently shewing that all of them, with the four 
figures round the cross at Northampton, are copied 
from the same common original. 

There need not indeed be any scruple in admit- 
ting it as a fact, that it was the prevalent custom 
of the artists during the middle ages to assimilate 
the countenances equally with the costume to that 
of the individual whose effigy they produced. The 
coins, the bronzes, and the busts of all antiquity, 
bespeak the same pervading intention, and it is 
inconsistent with the general analogy to suppose 
an artist would attempt the delineation of an object 
of this nature from the vagrant and uncontrolled 
creation of his own thoughts. He w r ould scarcely 
attempt anything so unconsidered as to offer to 
sorrowing kindred a memorial bearing no kind of 
resemblance to the deceased, nor would they on the 
other hand set up an imaginary likeness of those 
who were embalmed in their fondest recollections. 
But we are moreover assured by a careful examina- 
tion of a vast number of monumental effigies, that 



INTENDED TO BE REPRESENTATIVE. 185 

each sculptor worked with the idea of personifica- 
tion, and that all his efforts had a ' realistic' 
tendency. 

In observations upon another subject I have 
adduced a strong argument in support of this 
opinion, and I will now add a few remarks which 
since that time have lent their aid in confirming 
more strongly the presumption of monumental art 
being designed to pourtray and perpetuate the 
living image of the deceased. Thus as illustra- 
tive of the fact, the expression of Queen Eleanor's 
countenance is precisely the same in the effigy at 
Westminster Abbey, and in those of the two 
crosses already mentioned, which would scarcely 
have happened had the sculptor worked by his own 
unguided caprice. And thus too we find a repe- 
tition of similar features in prior Crauden's head 
on a boss in the cathedral of Ely, and though 
taken at a later period of life, on a hood-mould 
outside his own private chapel. Thus too are the 
very features of John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, 
and Margaret Beauchamp his wife, delineated by a 
contemporary hand on stone in the church of 
Goodrich, and in their portraits at Castle Ashby, 
and thus likewise when the tomb of the earl of 
Sunderland in Brington church was opened in the 



186 INSTANCES ADDUCED 

year 1846, his hair being preserved, was found to 
be of the same colour in which it was represented 
on his bust. Again, the sepulchral effigy of Dr. 
Donne, now lying in the crypt of St. Paul's ca- 
thedral, is recorded to have been copied from the 
life. The bust of Shakespeare at Stratford was 
supposed by Chantrey to have been taken from a 
cast made of the poet's head after death, owing to 
the peculiar compression of the lips, which are the 
first part of the face to sink after animation has 
fled. The will of the countess of Warwick (1439) 
expressly states, "that my statue be made all 
naked, with my hair cast backwards, according to 
the design and model which Thomas Porchalion 
has for that purpose/' All of these are instances 
which go a great way to prove the foregoing hypo- 
thesis, and owing to the extreme difficulty of ad- 
ducing positive testimony in its support, they are 
entitled to careful consideration, before the notion 
is rejected. It would be extremely easy to advance 
arguments to the same effect, drawn from an exten- 
sive personal examination of different works of mo- 
numental art, but it may be more conclusive to rest 
the question upon the illustrations already given. 

I have deemed it necessary to dwell with perhaps 
too much diffuseness on this point, from a de- 



OF ITS SIGNIFICANT MEANING. 187 

sire to excite attention to a subject which has 
hitherto received but little, but which, when in- 
vestigated in a spirit of impartial criticism, may 
cause the study of monumental effigies to ally itself 
more closely with our sympathies, and lead us to 
consider these works not merely as capricious speci- 
mens of art, or worthless blocks of stone, only fit to 
be mutilated by the ruthless hands of ignorance, 
but as being in truth attempts towards carefully de- 
signed portraits, frequently the best which those re- 
spective ages were capable of producing, portraits 
of monarchs, and warriors, and statesmen, whose 
perishing and neglected memorials, equally with 
their fame, are consecrated to the protecting regard 
of all posterity. Viewing them under this impres- 
sion, they immediately cease to be ideal ; they be- 
come at once clothed with significancy, and appear 
in our eyes as connecting links betwixt the living 
and the dead. Thus will all these time-honoured 
heir-looms of early days possess as it were a vital 
enchantment : instead of being merely abstract, 
isolated and unintelligible relics of former toil, 
they will begin to speak to our feelings with an 
appropriate utterance, grow intimately woven with 
our departed ties of affinity, and become associated 
with our feelings of patriotism. 



188 ERECTION OF CROSSED 

But little time appears to have been lost after 
Eleanor's funeral before the erection of crosses 
was commenced at the several spots at which her 
remains rested betwixt Harby and Westminster, 
since the payments on the first roll of the executors 
begin from the term of St. Michael in the nine- 
teenth year of Edward's reign. The queen it is 
true was actually living at this precise time, but 
this heading is in accordance with the usual man- 
ner of drawing up these documents, the accounts 
being annually returned to the exchequer from 
this period of the year. Only two of the crosses 
still remain out of the number mentioned in the 
Record, namely, at Northampton and Waltham, for 
the one at Geddington is not even alluded to. 
Those at Lincoln, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dun- 
stable, St. Alban's, Cheap, and Charing, have en- 
tirely perished. The existence of crosses at 
Grantham and Stamford is at present only tradi- 
tionary. 

John de Bello or de la Bataille was the architect 
of the crosses at Northampton, Stony Stratford, 
Woburn, Dunstable, and St. Alban's, and they 
were all built between the years 1291 and 1294. 
Alexander of Abingdon, and William of Ireland, 
were employed on the statues. The payments 



EXTRACTS FROM EXPENSE ROLLS. 189 

being mixed up with sums owing for works upon 
other crosses, it is difficult to apportion the exact 
cost of the cross we have more immediately before 
us, and the entries are of so varied a character that 
it is equally so to throw them together in a regular 
classification. It will therefore be expedient to 
submit all the entries themselves in their natural 
order to the reader's attention, and then offer such 
remarks in illustration as they may suggest. 

% Liberationes pro Ptegina consorte Regis, factse 
per manus J. Bacun et R. de Kancia, de termino 
Sti. Michaelis, anno regni Regis Edwardi decimo- 
nono finiente. Rotul. Prim. 

Item, Roberto filio Henrici, burgensi de North- 
amptona, ad opera pavimenti ibidem, xx. li. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, pro se (et) sociis suis, 
pro cruce Norhamtonse faciendse. xx. li. 

Item, Henrico filio Roberti de Norhamtona, 
per manus Roberti de Middletone, pro pavimento 
ibidem faciendo. xl. marcse. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, in partem solutionis pro 
crucibus de Norhamtona et Sancto Albano, 
xl. marcse. 

Item, Roberto filio Henrici, de Norhamtona 
pro pavimento ibidem faciendo, xx. marcae. 

Item, Roberti filio Henrici, de Norhamtona, 



190 EXTRACTS FROM EXPENSE ItOLLS. 

pro pavimento ibidem, pro anima Reginee, faciendo, 
xx. li. 

Item, Jolianni de Bello et Symoni de Pabeham, 
cimentariis, pro Crucibus de Norhamtona et 
Sancto Albano, faciendis, xxx. li. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, pro factura Crucis de 
Norhamtona, xx. li. 

*Iteni, Roberto de Corf, (A) in partem solutionis 
pro iij. flecchiis, iij. capitibus, et iij. agnis, de Mar- 
more, ad Cruces de Lincolnia, Norhamtona, et 
Wautham, v. marcse. 

Item, Jolianni de Bello, in partem solutionis 
pro factura Crucium de Norhamtona et Sancto 
Albano, xl. marcse. 

Item, Willielmo de Hibernia, in partem solu- 
tionis xxv. marcas, pro quinque imaginibus fa- 
ciendis ad crucem de Norhamtona, et alibi, 
v. marcse. 

Liberaciones pro Alianora quondam Regina 
Anglise, &c. facte post festum Sti. Michaelis, 20th 
Edw. I. Rot. Secund. 

Inde liberaverunt Johanni de Bello pro fac- 
tura Crucium de Norhamtona et Sancto Albano, 
xxx. li. 

Item, Roberto de Corfe, per manus Willielmi 
de Blund fratris sue, in partem solutionis pro iij^ 



EXTRACTS FROM EXPENSE ROLLS. 1 91 

virgis, iij anulis, et iij capitibus pro Crucibus de 
Wautham, Norhamtona et Lincolnia, vij. marcse. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, per manus Johannis de 
Hunte, in partem solutionis, pro factura Crucium 
Norhamtona, Dunstaple et Stratforde, x. li. 

Item, Willielmo Imaginatori, in partem soluci- 
onis xxv. li., pro factura imaginum ad Crucem de 
Norkamtona, virgse, capitis et anuli, x. marcse. 

Item, Johanni de la Bataille, cimentario, in 
partem solutionis, pro factura Crucium de Sancto 
Albano, Woburne, Dunstaple, Stonistratford et 
Norhamtona, xl. li. 

Item, Magistro Willielmo de Hibernia, in partem 
solutionis xxv. li., pro factura imaginum, virgse, 
capitis, et anuli Crucis Norhamtona, v. marcse. 

Item, Magistro "Willielmo de Hibernia in partem 
solutionis pro factura imaginum ad Crucem ]\ T or- 
hamtona, x. marcee. 

Liberationes pro Eegina, post Pascham, anno 
Regni Regis Edwardi xxi. 

"*Item, Willielmo de Bernak, (B) cementario, pro 
cariagio quatuor imaginum ad Crucem Norham- 
tonse, et pro cariagio capitis et lancese ejusdem 
Crucis, de Londonia usque Norhamtona, lxxiij. s. 
iiij. d. 



192 EXTRACTS FROM EXPENSE ROLLS. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, cementario, ad opera- 
tiones Crucis de St. Albano, Donestaple, Wou- 
bourne, et Stonystratforde, et calceti de Nor- 
hamtona, xl. li. 

*Item, MagistroWillielino de Hibernia,(C) cemen- 
tario, in partem solutionis pro factura virgse, capitis, 
anuli et imaginum Crucis Norhamtona, et etiam 
pro factura virgse, capitis, et anuli Crucis Lin- 
colnise, iiij. li. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, ad operationes calceti 
Norhamtonse, c. s. 

Liberationes factse de denariis Dominse Alianorse 
Reginae consortis de termino Sti. Michaelis 21. 
Edw. I. Rot. Tert. 

Item, Magistro Willielmo de Hibernia in per- 
pacationem pro factura virgce, capitis, anuli et ima- 
ginum ad Crucem Norhamtona, et etiam pro 
factura virgae, capitis, et anuli Crucis Lincolniae, 
vi. marcae. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, in partem solutionis 
pro Crucibus de Sancto Albano, Dunstable, Wo- 
burne, Stonistratforde, et Norhamtona faciendis, 
lx. li. 

"*Item, eisdem Johannis (D) in perpacationem pro 
maeremio ad Schaffoud ad Crucem Norhamtonae, 



EXTRACTS FROM EXPENSE ROLLS. 193 

et pro virga, capite, et imaginibus ejusdem Crucis 
ibidem assidendis, vi. li. iij. s. viij. d. 

Item, eodem Johanni, ad operationes ca cet 
extra Norhamtonam, lx. & 

Liberationes pro Regina consorte, de termino 
Sti. Hillarii, anno regni Regis Edwardi xxii. 

*"*Item, Willielmo de Hibernia (E), in perpaca- 
tionem xxv, marcse, pro factura quinque imaginum 
ad Crucem de Norhamtona, per manum pro- 
prium, vi. li. iij. s. iiij. d. 

Item, Johanni de Bello, cementario, ad opera- 
tiones calceti de Norhamtona, x. li. 

The earlier entries in the preceding extracts state 
the cost of the causeway, from the town to the 
cross, (a portion of which still remains in an inte- 
gral condition,) to have been forty pounds and sixty 
marks. In the last item the work is said to have 
been executed for the benefit of Eleanor's soul; 
other disbursements were made towards it, but 
they are merged in sums for a different work. 
The most perplexing entries in the account are 
those of payments " pro flecchiis ; pro cariagio ca- 
pitis; et lancese; pro factura virgse, et anuli c ," 
terms purely architectural, the real application of 

c The entries where these terms occur are marked by corre- 
sponding asterisks * *. 



194 ARCHITECTURAL NOMENCLATURE. 

which can only be surmised. It has been con- 
jectured by Professor Willis d that the shafts of 
pillars were sometimes called verges, and that in 
these entries we have a complete history of a 
kind of pillar which appears to be indifferently 
termed virga, fleche, lancea, which is made of Pur- 
beck marble from Corfe, and is accompanied by a 
capital, The rough form seems to have been sent 
by Robert de Corf (A), conveyed to Northampton 
by William de Bernak (B), wrought and finished 
by John de Hibernia (C), and fixed in its place by 
John de Bello (D). Upon the former part of this 
conjecture I shall offer a few strictures which ap- 
pear to me as a more consistent application of the 
passages involving the difficulty. The three flec- 
chice* mentioned in the roll were most probably 
vanes, or arrows for the finials, (capitibus,) which 
were supported by the verge (virga) or slender 
shaft which rises out of the body of the cross, and 

d Architectural Nomencla- Claus. 7 John, p. 56, b. 

ture of the Middle Ages, p. Ibidem pacavimus cuidam 

40. nuncio qui tulit vi. ligacias 

e Lat. Barb. Flecha, sagitta. flecchiorum de Lundon usque 

Fr. Fleche. The Clause rolls Colecestre per preceptum dni 

have a writ directed to the Regis et qui tulit coria dama- 

sheriffof Southampton order- rum et castaneas de Coleces- 

ing him to find " fleccas et tre usque Lundon, v. d. — Rot. 

pennas ad quarellum." — Rot. Mis. 14? John. 



TERMINATION OF THE CROSS. 1 95 

the annulus* might have been a gilded foliated 
coronal going round the uppermost canopy, under 
which it may be presumed there was the fifth 
image alluded to (E). Much speculation has 
been afloat respecting the way in which the head 
of this exquisite work was terminated. It may 
perhaps be sufficient to set curiosity entirely at 
rest, when it is stated that nothing has hitherto 
been discovered to determine this question. How 
the upper portion was finished can only be a mere 
matter of individual opinion. There can be no 
doubt there was another figure of some kind, be- 
cause the rolls mention it, but to attempt any fur- 
ther restoration would be both unwarranted by 
authority, and highly injudicious. Enough has 
been done, and prudently done, to preserve Queen 
Eleanor's cross from destruction g . It is the fault 
of the present age to tamper with what is original, 

f In an earlier entry it is (E) ; moreover such an orna- 

spelt agnis instead of annulis. ment is so unfrequent in 

As we can only deal with medieval architecture that I 

words as we actually find cannot call to mind ever 

them, this would imply that having seen it used, 

there was an Agnus Dei in- s The reader will find an 

troduced among the decora- interesting paper by Mr. 

tions of the cross, as Professor Hunter, on the death of 

Willis supposes, but it is diffi- Eleanor of Castile, and the 

cult to reconcile this with the honours paid to her memory, 

existence of the fourth image in the Archaeologia, vol. xxix. 



196 RESTORATION GENERALLY INJUDICIOUS. 

and introduce renovations unsanctioned by anti- 
quity. People are much too busy in their desire 
to preserve the buildings of their forefathers, and 
more is to be feared from their ill-instructed zeal 
than from the progress of natural decay. 




The Religious Houses in Northampton. 




F the various religious esta- 
blishments in Northampton, 
the Cluniac priory of St. 
Andrew^ s, on the north side 
of the town, was by far the 
most important. The time 
of its foundation is uncer- 
tain, but there are sufficient reasons for concluding 
that if this order of monks was not actually in- 
troduced, their monastery was repaired and largely 
endowed in 1084, by Simon de St. Liz, earl of 
Northampton and Huntingdon. In conjunction 
with Maud his wife, this nobleman gave to it all 
the churches in the town, and various lands in 
Hardingstone, Hackleton, Brayfield, Ecton, and 
Yardley. Grimsbold endowed it with the church 
and tithe of Moulton, and Bowden : Otger with 
the tithe of Horton ; Acard with the tithe of Sprat- 
ton. There were many other early grants, which 
it will be unnecessary to enumerate, some of 
which were confirmed by David, king of Scotland, 
and again by Henry I. in the eighth of his reign, 



198 



ST. ANDREW S. 



and by Stephen. Henry I. bestowed upon it the 
church of St. Sepulchre 3 . 

In the register of St. Andrew's preserved among 
the Cottonian manuscripts, it is thus described : 
Amongst the followers of William the Conqueror, 
who assisted him in obtaining possession of the 



a Pro Priore et Monachis 
Sancti Andree Norhant. Rex 
eisdem archiepiscopis salutem 
Inspeximus cartam Celebris 
memorie domini H. quondam 
regis Angliae progenitoris 
nostri in hec verba. H. rex 
Angliae et dux Normanniae et 
Aquitaniae et comes Andega- 
vensis justiciariis vicecomiti- 
bus et ministris suis Anglie et 
Normanniae et portum maris 
salutem. Precipio quod omnes 
res monachorum de Norham- 
tona quas servientes sui potu- 
erint affidare suas esse pro- 
prias sint quieti de omni the- 
lonio et tallagio et omni con- 
suetudine et prohibeo ne quis 
eos super hoc disturbet injuste 
super x. libras forisfacti. Teste 
T. Cancellario apud Norhamt. 
Nos autem preceptum et pro- 
hibicionem predictam ratam 
habentes et quanta ea pro 
nobis et heredibus nostris 
quantum in nobis est dilectis 
nobis in Christo priori et 



monachis Sancti Andree Nor- 
hant. et eorum successoribus 
concedimus et confirmamus 
sicut carta predictam rationa- 
biliter testatur et prout iidem 
prior et monachi et predeces- 
sores sui libertatibus predic- 
tis hactenus rationabiliter usi 
sunt et gavisi. Hiis testibus 
venerabilibus patribus I. Ar- 
chiepiscopo Cantuariensis to- 
cius Angliae primata Cancel- 
lario H. Lincolniensis epi- 
scopo Thesaurario nostris R. 
Dunolmenso episcopo Jo- 
hanne Comite Cornubo fratre 
nostro carissimo Johanne de 
Warenna comite Surreio. 
Thoma Wake Willelmi de 
Clynton et aliis. Dato per 
manum nostram apud villam 
Sancti Johannis primo die 
Julii per finem unius marce 
Norhant. — Inter Recorda Cu- 
riae Cancellariae in Turri Lon- 
don asservata. — Rot. Chart. 
10 Edw. III. 



FAMILY OF ST. LIZ. 199 

kingdom, were two valiant brothers, Garner and 
Simon de Seynlyz, sons of Raundoel the rich. 
After the father's death, the eldest returned into 
France and succeeded to the paternal heritage, 
but Simon remained with the Conqueror in Eng- 
land. Soon afterwards one of the nobles, "Waldelf 
or Waltheof, earl of Huntingdon, was convicted of 
treason and beheaded at Winchester, and leaving 
two daughters, William bestowed Maud the elder 
with all the honour of Huntingdon, upon «3imon de 
Seynlyz. In the eighteenth year after the Conquest 
(1084) he founded the monastery of St. Andrew, 
and made it dependent upon the house of the 
blessed Maria de Caritate. In the reign of Henry 
I. he went to the Holy Land, and in returning 
died at Charite, where he was buried. Henry had 
affianced Maud, the sister of Alexander king of 
Scotland, and David, and he gave Maud who was 
the widow of Simon de Seynlyz, to David, brother 
of this same monarch, together with the custody 
of the earl's heir. After his father he took the 
name of Simon de Seynlyz, and founded the abbey 
of the blessed Maria de Pratis b . 

The confirmation of Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, 
of the various grants to St. Andrew's, is interesting 

b E registro S. Andr, 



200 CHURCHES BELONGING TO ST. ANDREW'S. 

from the fact of its having preserved amongst some 
of the existing churches, the names of others which 
are now destroyed. At this time there were the 
following belonging to the abbey : All Saints, St. 
Giles, St, Michael's, St. Sepulchre, St. Mary, St. 
Gregory, St. Peter, with the church of Thorpe and 
chapel of Upton, St. Edmund, St. Bartholomew, 
and the chapel of St. Thomas. 

During the subordination of St. Andrew's to the 
Abbey de Caritate, the revenues of the convent, in 
time of war with France, were seized by the crown, 
and let out to farm at a hundred marks a year. 
But in the 1st of Hen. IV. they obtained leave to 
retain possession of the temporalities upon paying 
twenty shillings annually to the crown during his 
wars with France, being the pension (apportus) 
they paid abroad in time of peace to the monastery 
of Clugni on which they depended. In the 6th 
Edward IV. the priory was made denizen, and be- 
came discharged from all pensions due to the 
crown. By the survey taken of the revenues in 
1535 they were rated at £263. 7s. l|d. clear of 
all deductions, the gross income being £334 
13s. 7d. 

From a letter of Dr. Richard Layton to Lord 
Cromwell in 1538, it appears that the affairs of the 



STATE AT THE SUPPRESSION. 201 

house were then in a very unprosperous state. He 
says : u At St. Androse in Northampton the Howse 
is in dett gretly, the lands solde and morgagede, 
the fermes let owte, and the rent recevide before 
hand for x, xv, xx yeres. Chauntreys fowndeth 
to be paide oute of the londs and gret bods off 
forfaitures therupon for non payment. The Howse 
is iiij. hundret pownds in revenewys, the king's 
foundation thus to be mangellede by the quondam. 
Jhane Petie, the prior, now is a bachelor of divin- 
itie, a gret husbonde and a goode clerke, and petie 
hit is that ever he cam ther. If he were pro- 
motede to a better thynge, and the king's grace 
wolde take hit into his hands, so myght he recover 
all the lands agayne, wliich the prior shall never/' 

The same year the prior and convent acknow- 
ledged the royal supremacy, and surrendered the 
monastery into the king's hands. 

Out of St. Andrew's monastery at Northampton, 
sprung a hospital at Kingsthorp, founded at the pe- 
tition of Peter, son of Adam. Walter, one of the 
priors, established it in the thirteenth century, for 
the purpose of receiving pilgrims and poor, and 
under the care of a procurator, two chaplains, and 
six lay brothers, with the restriction of never hav- 
ing more than two altars, one in the chapel of the 



202 CLUNIAC NUNS AT DE LA PRE. 

Holy Trinity, another in the chapel of St. David, 
and only one cemetery for burying poor and stran- 
gers, and others dwelling at the same place. If, 
however, any one from the parishes belonging to 
St. Andrew's, whether ill or in good health, should 
choose to be buried there, or if they had expressed 
a desire to remain there perpetually, it was per- 
mitted to receive them in a secular habit as long 
as they should live, and then give them burial. 
It was further ordered that in the body of the 
principal chapel of the Holy Trinity there should 
be three kinds of beds joined together endways, 
on which the strangers, the poor, and the sick 
should be placed, so that they might by that means 
more conveniently be enabled to hear mass, and 
more devoutly attend to the prayers of the 
Church. At the Dissolution it was valued at £32. 
4s. 2d. Some slight remains of the foundation 
in question still exist, converted into a blacksmith's 
shop. 

Besides the priory of St. Andrew's, the Cluniacs , 
had an establishment for nuns at De la Pre. This 
was founded in the reign of Stephen by Simon 
de St. Liz the younger, earl of Northampton. He 
endowed it with the churches of Barton, Doding- 
ton, and Fotheringhay, with possessions in Hard- 



ABBEY OF ST. JAMES. 203 

ingstone, and smaller benefactions in Ecton, Wel- 
comb, Walebec, and Northampton. Robert de 
Chokes gave them the church of Wollaston : Hugh 
de Eilgrave the church of Filgrave : Hamon the 
church of Eif hide : and Eoger de Clare, earl of 
Hertford, the church of Broughton. It is un- 
necessary to enumerate all the other donations. 
They have been recounted in the Monasticon. 
When Edward III. visited Northampton (May 
18) in the second year of his reign, he con- 
firmed all their possessions. At the survey in 
the 26th of Hen. VIII., the clear annual re- 
venue amounted to £119. 9s. 7Jd. At the time 
of the suppression the house consisted of ten 
nuns. 

The abbey of St. James, on the extreme part of 
the western suburbs of the town, was founded to 
the honour of this apostle for Black Canons, by 
William Peverel, natural son of the Conqueror. 
As the founder died about the latter end of the 
year 1112, or the beginning of 1113, the monas- 
tery was probably commenced before that time. 
The ground allotted to the monks by William 
Peverel for their buildings was forty acres, to which 
he added the mill and church at Duston. Henry 
I., in the 5th year of his reign, (1104,) and 



204 ABBOT SUMMONED TO PARLIAMENT. 

Henry II., in the 18th, (1172,) confirmed these 
donations, with additions. In the 52nd of Henry 
III., the monks obtained licence for a fair to be 
held at the convent on the eve of the festival 
of St. James, and the two following days. The 
fair continued to be held in the abbey grounds 
some time after the house was dissolved . 

In the 12th of Edward II. the abbot of St. 
James was summoned to a parliament held at 
York, but being infirm he appointed Henry de 
Blisworth, one of the canons of the monastery, as 
his proxy. Upon searching the rolls it appeared 
that the abbot of this convent had been called only 
once before to parliament, (49th Hen. III.,) having 
however never been enrolled, and holding nothing 
of the king in capite, or by barony, but in frank- 
almoigne ; and as a parliamentary attendance would 
greatly impoverish the convent and monks, the 
chancellor permitted his name to be struck out of 
the Chancery register d . 

At the survey the gross amount of the revenues 
was £213. 17s. 2^d. The site of the church-yard 
and church contains about two acres, and the abbey 
demesnes lie on both sides of the road leading to 
Banbury. Going down to the abbey is a causey 

c Dugdale, Monast, vol. vi. p. 114. d Ibid. 



HOSPITAL OF ST. LEONARD. 205 

called Cut-throat -lane, with the old wall on the 
left e . 

When the hospital of St. Leonard was founded 
it is impossible to ascertain: but the following 
charter from the municipal archives shews it to 
have existed in the reign of Henry II. 

% Henricus dei gratia Eex Anglise et Dux 
Normanniae et Aquitanise et Comes Andegavensis 
Arehiepiscopis, Episcopis Abbatibus, Archidiaconis, 
Decanis, Justiciariis, vicecomitibus et omnibus Bal- 
livis et fidelibus suis totius Angliae salutem. Per- 
cipio nobis quod custodiatis et manu teneatis 
leprosis Sti. Leonardi de Xorhamtona et nuncios 
eorum et omnes res suas ita quod nullam sit in 
ahquo injuriam faciatis vel contumeliam nee fieri 
permittatis. ISTec eos disturberis injuste vel dis- 
turberi permittatis de elemosinis suis habendis ab 
eis quae eis gratis dare voluerint, et si quis eis super 
hoc in ahquo forisfacere presumpserit plenariam 
suam justiciam sive dilacione fieri faciatis; teste 
Godefrido de . . oi apud Norhanton. 

Moreover Gaufridus, son of the earl of Essex, 
granted to God and the hospital of St. Leonard 
at Northampton, and to the leprous serving God 

e Dugdale, Monast, vol. vi. Northampton. 
p. 115, from Bridges, Hist, of 



206 HOSPITAL OP ST. LEONARD. 

at that place, for the soul of King Henry, and for 
the soul of King Richard, and for the soul of King 
John, and for his own soul, and that of Beatrice 
his wife, and all his ancestors and successors, in 
pure and perpetual alms, the issues of twenty shil- 
lings, which he had bought from Henry the son of 
Hugh, in Northampton. To wit, the issues of five 
shillings and four capons from the tenements of 
Hugh de Plompton, and the issues of thirty-two 
pence and two capons, and two hens, from the 
tenement of Richard, and the issues of eight shil- 
lings from a certain shop in the market ring, {in 
rengo mercatorum.) 

As this deed is written in a hand belonging to 
the very end of the 12th, or commencement of the 
13th century, the Geoffrey earl of Essex who 
makes the grant, must have been either the Gau- 
fridus who married Beatrix de Say, a family who 
had made a grant to the Cluniac foundation of 
Wenlock, or else one of those twenty barons who 
were appointed to enforce the observance of Magna 
Charta. Another form of compellation is "to God, 
the blessed Mary, and the infirm brethren and 
sisters of the house of St. Leonard, at North- 
ampton, there serving God." Milo de Bello 
campo also granted six acres of land in the field 



feiaks. st. John's hospital. 207 

of Wotton, to the poor brethren and sisters of the 
hospital of St. Leonard. 

The Friars Minors, not long after their coining 
into England, (1224,) endeavoured to form a settle- 
ment in Northampton, and hired first a habitation 
in the parish of St. Giles, but afterwards fixed 
northwards of the Market Place, where they had 
the largest and best house of all the Friars in 
Northampton, built upon ground given them by 
the town f . 

The Friars Preachers had a house in the Horse 
Market, and were settled there before 124CK 

Simon Montfort and Thomas Chitwood founded 
a priory of Carmelites, or White Friars, in 1271. 

The hospital near the south gate, dedicated to 
St. John the Baptist, was founded by Walter, 
archdeacon of Northampton, in 1137, for the 
benefit of poor and infirm persons. The patronage, 
vested in the bishop of Lincoln, still continues in 
his hands. It is the only monastic building of 
which any traces are now discernible. 

Opposite to this hospital of St. John, John 

i Humphry, duke of Buck- were interred at St. John's 

ingham, killed in the battle of Hospital. — Tanner, Notitia, 

Northampton, 38 Hen. VI., is p. 385. 
said to have been buried here; g Ibid., p. 386. 

others who fell in this conflict 



208 



RELIGIOUS FRATERNITIES. 



Longvile, in 1322, founded a priory for the use of 
Augustine Friars, and gave them a messuage, with 
the appurtenances, upon which they might build a 
chapel and monastery. 

Besides these there was also the hospital of St. 
Thomas, near the south gate h , and the gilds or 
religious fraternities of St. Mary 1 in the chapel of 
St. Mary, and the Holy Trinity k , both within the 
church of All Saints; the gild of Corpus Christi*, 
of St. John the Baptist 1 , of St. George 1 , St. Cross 1 , 
and of St. Catherine the Virgin 111 in the church of 



h Grene's will, 1460, 
among the municipal ar- 
chives. 

' Amongst the gild cer- 
tificates, 12 Richard II., apud 
Turrim. 

k Municipal archives. 

l Rot. Pat., 38 Hen. VI., 
p. 2. m. 1. 

m The following certificate 
of St. Catherine's gild, will 
serve as a fair example of all 
the others. 

Northampton. Reverendo 
in Christo patri ac domino, 
domino Thomae permissione 
divina Eboracensi archiepi- 
scopo Anglise primati et illus- 
trissimi Regis Angliae Can- 
cellario Johannes Glasier et 
Philippus William Custodes 



cujusdam pauperculae frater- 
nitatis Sanctae Katerinae Vir- 
ginis in Ecclesiae Beatae 
Mariae Villa? Northamptone 
Oninimodas reverentias tanto 
pastori debitas cum honore. 

Virtute cujusdam brevis 
domini nostri Regis vice- 
comiti Northampton in hoc 
casu directi et in villa North- 
ampton proclamati, modum, 
tempus et formam inceptionis 
gubernationis et continua- 
tions dictae fraternitatis, ves- 
trae dominationi reverendae 
tenore praesentium declara- 
mus prout praedictum breve 
exigit et requirit Villa 
Northampton est antiquus 
burgus domini Regis ettalem 
habet consuetudinem a toto 



GILD OF ST. CATHERINE. 



209 



St. Mary, besides the fraternity of St. Clement in 
the church of St. Giles. 



tempore quo non extat me- 
raoria usitatam hactenus et 
approbatam, quod omnes 
ejusdem villae burgenses in 
ultima voluntate sua libere et 
sine impedimento possint le- 
gare terras tenementa red- 
ditus et servitia quae habent 
ex adquisitionibus suis qui- 
buscumque personis voluerint 
tarn regularibus quam secu- 
laribus et etiam tarn ecclesiis 
aUaribus et luminariis quam 
alibi ad inveniendum Capel- 
lanos vel aliquod aliud servi- 
tium divinum pro animabus 
suis vel antecessorum suorum 
faciendum. Etista consuetudo 
ibidem continue usitata et 
approbata existit. Reverendae 
insuper dominationi vestrae 
intimamus quod anno regni 
Regis Edwardi avi domini 
nostri regis nunc vicesimo 
primo ex devotione quorun- 
dam Burgensium villae North- 
ampton, ad laudem et hono- 
rein Dei Omnipotentis glo- 
riosae Virgin is Marias Om- 
nium Sanctorum et Beatae 
Katerinae Virginis et Martyiis 
primitus extitit ordinatum, 
quod iidem Burgenses ex 
mera eorum devotione et con- 



tribution e unum capellanum 
ydoneum in ecclesia praedicta 
divina celebraturum continue 
haberent: orando principali- 
ter pro salubri statu, pace et 
tranquillitate domini nostri 
Regis Angliae reginae proce- 
rum et magnatum ejusdem et 
omnium benefactorum suo- 
rum et contribuentium in hac 
parte, et quod idem capellanus 
omnibus diebus dominicis et 
festis ad altam missam et 
omnes horas canonicas in 
auxilium personae ecclesia? 
praelibatae propter exilitatem 
ejusdem et majoris divini ser- 
vitii ac devotionis incremen- 
tum personaliter interesset in 
ecclesia supradicta. Et post 
modum crescente devotione 
fidelium, quidam alii bur- 
genses ejusdem villae hujus- 
modi devotioni sic inchoata? 
seipsis coadjutores et contri- 
butarios voluntarios substitue- 
bant, illam devotion em pro 
posse eorumdem sustentan- 
dam fide sua media promit- 
tentes. Et modo consimili 
unum alium capellanum in 
dicta ecclesia pro salubri statu 
pace et tranquillitate praeno- 
tatis divina cotidie celebratu- 



210 



GILD OF ST. CATHERINE. 



This is as full an outline of the religious 
houses and fraternities established in the town, as 



rum providebant. Et ita per 
capellanos praedictos divinum 
servitium in honore Sanctae 
Katerinae sit et augmentatur 
in ecclesia praelibata, ubi 
prius propter exilitatem per- 
sonae ejusdem erat multotiens 
praetermissum. Et sic per 
contributionem praedictam 
fraternitas Sanctae Katerinae 
primitus nominabatur. De- 
inde iidem burgenses amplio- 
rem in hac parte devotionem 
habentes, vesperas in vigilia 
matutinas horas canonicas et 
altam missam annuatim in 
festo Sanctae Katerinae Vir- 
ginis in ecclesia praefixa cum 
nota et maxima Solempnitate 
Capellanorum et clericorum 
qua fieri poterit ad laudem et 
honorem Dei et ipsius Virginis 
et Martyris Sanctae Katerinae 
dici fieri et celebrari venera- 
biliter ordinarunt. Ad quas 
quidem missam et horas ca- 
nonicas audiendas fratres de- 
votionis praedictae ob reveren- 
tiam illius festi de una secta 
vestiti concurrunt, preces et 
orationes suas devote fun- 
dentes pro salubri statu et 
benefactoribus suis supra- 
dictis, etiam post offertorium 



missae offerentes et ibidem 
consistentes quousque magna 
missa illius dici fuerit con- 
summata. Et sic solent eodem 
die omnes adinvicem mandu- 
care sumptibus propriis cujus- 
libet eorumdem. Et conve- 
nientibus illis eodem die ad 
vesperas, et vesperis finitis, 
Placebo et Dirige, ac Missa 
de Requiem in Crastino pro 
animabus benefactorum suo- 
rum et fidelium defunctorum, 
dictis fratribus in orationibus 
suis ibidem interessentibus 
cum nota dicuntur. Et in- 
super finita Missa de Requiem 
in Crastino, omnes fratres 
praedicti ad audiendum com- 
potum custodurri ejusdem 
fraternitatis et ad alios duos 
custodes pro anno futuro eli- 
gendos insimul consistunt, ut 
eis videatur quod devotio suae 
prsedicta in omnibus susten- 
tetur. Expirante quoque 
finaliter quocumque fratrum 
praedictorum corpus ipsius 
defuncti per reliquos fratres 
suos prout decet ecclesiasticae 
traditur sepulturae et quilibet 
eoium unam missam de Re- 
quiem sumptibus suis propriis 
eodem die pro salute animae 



GILD OF ST. CATHERINE. 



211 



is compatible with, the 
volume. Minuter account 

ipsius defuncti facit devotius 
celebrari. Et sic millo alio 
mode- mint sacramenta libera- 
tiones convivia congregationes 
vel assemblationes quaecum- 
que in fraternitate praedicta, 
nee habent aliqua privilegia 
libertates usus vel consuetu- 
dines ultra formam praeno- 
tatam neque habent aliqua 
terras tenementa redditus vel 
servitia mortificata vel non 
mortificata nee habent cartas 
domini nostri Regis vel pro- 
genitorum suorum. Set dici- 
mus quod Ricardus Sadeler 
Robertus Spicer et alii seisiti 
fuerunt in feodo simplici de 
tenementis et redditibus in 
Norhampton quag valent per 
annum in omnibus exitibus 
£7. 13. 4. et aliquando minus 
per defectu tenendum. Et 
praefati Ricardus Sadeler Ro- 
bertus Spicer et alii dederunt 
et concesserunt per feoffamen- 
tum suum Philippo Porter, 
Johanni Belzetter, "Willi elm o 
"Whelewright, Johanni Au- 
bray et aliis omnia tenementa 
et redditus supradicta cum 
suis pertinentiis habenda et 
tenenda eis hasredibus et as- 
signatis eorum imperpetuum, 



nature of the present 
s of some of the original 

de capitalibus dominis feodo - 
rum illoram per servitia inde 
debita et de jure consueta, ea 
intentione ad dispouendum 
exitus et proficua inde annua- 
tim provenientia in sustenta- 
tionem servitii et devotionis 
supradictorum. Et quod ces- 
sante dicta fraternitate, vel 
servitio et devotione praedictis 
alio modo subtractis, bene 
lie eat praedictis feoffatis hae- 
redibus et assignatis eorum 
omnia tenementa et redditus 
praescripta cum suis pertinen- 
tiis dare vendere legare vel 
assignare quibuscumque vo- 
luerint in sal item animarum 
suarum ac primorum donato- 
rum feofTantium antecessorum 
suorum et omnium fidelium 
defunctorum. Nulla vero 
bona seu catalla remanent in 
manibus nostris seu alioruni 
quorumcumque ad usum 
dictae fraternitatis praeter 
meremium de novo emptum 
pro emendatione tenemento- 
rum praedictorum quod valet 
decern solidos. Et haec est 
forma inceptionis guberna- 
tionis regiminis et continua- 
tionis fraternitatis supradictae. 
Data Northampton sub sigil- 



212 COLLEGE OF ALL SAINTS. 

endowments have been already given by Brydges, 
to which the more inquisitive reader is referred 
for facts that have now merely an antiquarian 
interest 11 . 

There is however another document omitted by 
him which it is desirable to transfer to the notes, 
in an entire state, that the real nature of the col- 
lege founded in Northampton may be clearly 
understood. There can be no doubt that the 
settlement of scholars here in the reign of Henry 
III., was essentially a scholastic institution. The 
incorporation at this later period, was however of 
an ecclesiastical kind, founded (at the request of 
William Breton, vicar of All Saints) under letters 
patent from the crown, and consolidating the vari- 
ous gilds already mentioned. They were thus 
placed under the government of a custos and 
sixteen priests (parsonarum) , and this corporate 
body enabled to purchase lands and tenements to 
the value of twenty marcs. These letters were 
granted on condition that the college prayed for 

lis nostris xviii. die Mensis have been omitted by him, 

Januarii Anno regni regis being information inaccessible 

Ricardi Secundipostconques- at the period when he wrote 

turn duodecimo. — Miscellane- his history of the county, have 

ous Rolls, apud Turrim, No. been dwelt upon with suffi- 

308. cient prolixity. 
n The points however which 



COLLEGE OF ALL SAINTS. 



213 



the souls of Margaret of Anjou, and Edward of 
Westminster, together with the king himself when 
he died. From this foundation the present Col- 
lege-street takes its name . 



De Collegio fimdando. 
Rex omnibus ad quos &c. 
Salutem. Sciatis quod nos 
ex pia devotione et devota 
intentione Magistri Willielmi 
Breton sacrae paginae profes- 
soris Vicarii perpetui Eccle- 
siaeparochialis Omnium Sanc- 
torum in villa nostra North- 
ampton intellexisse quod di- 
vinum servicium tarn per 
ipsum Vicarium et Capel- 
lanos Fraternitatum Sanctae 
Trinitatis Sanctae Marias vir- 
ginis, Corporis Christi, Sancti 
Georgii Sanctae Crucis Sancti 
Johannis Baptistae et Sanctae 
Katerinae Virginis in Villa 
praedicta quam per plures 
alios presbiteros Stipendia- 
ries ibidem ad numerum 
quandoque sexdecim parso- 
narum vel ultra ad laudem 
et gloriam Dei Omnipoten- 
tis et gloriosissimae Virginis 
Mariae Matris Domini nostri 
Jesu Christi ac Omnium Sanc- 
torum in eadem Ecclesia co- 
tidie digne et laudabiliter 
more collegialitemporibustam 
nunc ipsius Vicarii ac presbi- 



terorum praedictorurn quam 
praedecessorum suorum per 
tempus non modicum con- 
tinuatum extitit, ac Deo dante 
de die in diem continuatur et 
continuabitur et augmentetur 
in futurum. Et quod ipsi 
Vicarius et presbiteri non 
solum in Ecclesia praedicta 
prout convenit, sed etiam in 
quodam mesuagio sive fundo 
eidem Vicario et Sacerdotibus 
Fraternitatum praedictarum 
et successoribus suis perti- 
nente et spectante le Prestis 
house vulgariter nuncupato, 
a consortio laicorum moram 
suam insimul tarn per diem 
quam per noctem honeste ut 
consortes collegiales diversa 
ordinationes lectiones et sta- 
tuta collegialiter conservan- 
tes continue ibidem maxime 
tamen tempore dicti Vicarii 
traxerunt et trahunt in prae- 
senti, unde idem Vicarius 
nobis humiliter supplicavit 
ut de ipso Vicario et presbi- 
teris praedictis et eorum suc- 
cessoribus quoddam Colle- 
gium perpetuum in Ecclesia 



214 



EARLY DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 



Within a very short distance of the hospital of 
St. John, is a large dilapidated building with 



praedicta de uno Custode et 
sociis suis facere creare fun- 
dare et stabilire perpetue ad 
nostram complacentiam dig- 
naremur. Nos digna con- 
sideratione praemissorum sup- 
plicationi ipsius Vicarii in 
hac parte favorabiliter incli- 
nati volentes quod ea quae ad 
eulmen et augmentationem 
tarn divini cultus quamhones- 
tatis Clericalis habentur et 
utuntur multipliciter quan- 
tum in nobis est augmentari 
et sublimari ad laudem glo- 
riam et honorem Sanctissimae 
et individuae Trinitatis Patris 
et Filii et Spiritus Sancti ac 
beatissimae Virginis Mariae 
praedictae et Omnium Sane • 
torum de gratia nostra spe- 
ciali facimus creamus fun- 
damus et stabilimus per prae- 
sentes unum Collegium per- 
petuum in dicta Ecclesia pa- 
rochiali Omnium Sanctorum 
in Villa nostra Northampton 
ac in mesuagio sive fundo 
praedicto perpetuis temporibus 
in futurum ibidem duraturum 
de dicto Vicario et presbiteris 
fraternitatum praedictarum et 
eorum successoribus Vicariis 
et presbiteris fraternitatum 



illarum pro tempore existen- 
tibus necnon de quibuscum- 
que aliis presbiteris qui per 
praedictos Vicarium et pres- 
biteros fraternitatum praedic- 
tarum et eorum successores 
pro tempore existentes in 
Collegium illud in socios 
nominandi eligendi et admit- 
tendi in posterum erunt, vo- 
lumus et concedimus per prae- 
sentes quod praedietus Wil- 
lielmus Breton et successores 
sui Vicarii Ecclesiae praedictae 
pro perpetuo sint et nominen- 
tur Vicarij et Custodes Col- 
legii illius et quod idem Vica- 
rius et successores sui ac 
presbiteri fraternitatum et 
successores sui necnon omnes 
alii presbiteri ut praedictum 
est eligendi sint unum corpus 
perpetuum et per nomen Cus- 
todis et sociorum Collegii 
Omnium Sanctorum in villa 
Northampton in omnibus et 
singulis Curiis et placeis nos- 
tris et haeraedum nostrorum 
ac aliis Curiis quibuscumque 
in omnibus et singulis mate- 
riis actionibus placitis et que- 
relis realibus personalibus et 
mixtis Collegium praedictum 
aliquo modo in futurum tan- 



EARLY DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 



215 



modern windows, and late additions, but which, 
when examined within, shews indisputable marks 



gentibus per ipsos vel contra 
ipsos in posterum movendis 
implacitare et implacitari 
possint. Et quod praedictus 
Vicarius et Custos Collegii 
praedicti et successores sui in 
augmentationem beneficii sui 
et presbiteri praedicti Con- 
sortes et eorum successores 
Collegii praedicti in subsi- 
dium reparations praedicti 
loci et relevamen eorundem 
pariter possint perquirere sibi 
et successoribus suis in per- 
petuum terras tenementa red- 
ditus et servitia quae de nobis 
non tenentur per servitium 
militare ad valorem viginti 
marcarum per annum ultra 
reprisas absque aliquo fine 
proinde et absque aliquo 
feodo pro hiis Litteris nostris 
patentibus in Cancellaria nos- 
tra aut in Hanaperio ejusdem 
nobis faciendo vel quovismodo 
solvendo. Statuto de terris 
et tenementis ad manum 
mortuam non ponendis et 
aliis Statutis ordinationibus 
actibus provisicnibus restric- 
tionibus aut materiis qui- 
buscumque non obstantibus. 
Dum tamen per Inquisitio- 
nem in hac parte capiendam 



et in Cancellariam nostram 
vel haeredum nostrorum rite 
retornandam compertum sit 
quod id fieri possit ab damno 
seu prejudicio nostro, alio- 
rum quorumcumque, aliqui- 
bus Statutis ordinationibus 
actibus provisionibus restric- 
tionibus aut aliis materiis 
quibuscumque in contrarium 
factis non obstantibus. Con- 
cessimus ulterius et licentiam 
dedimus per praesentes pro 
nobis et haeredibus nostris 
praefatis Vicario Custodi et 
sociis praedictis et successori- 
bus suis quod ipsi auctorita- 
tem ac plenam potestatem 
habeant ad statuta et ordina- 
tiones intra se facienda ad 
di vina pro divino servitio et 
bonis moribus observandis et 
malis moribus extirpandis per 
ipsos pro bono statu nostro et 
carissimae Consortis nostrae 
Margaretae Reginae Angliae 
ac Edwardi principis filii nos- 
tri Carissimi dum vixerimus 
et animabus nostris cum ab 
hac luce migraverimus et 
animabus omnium fidelium 
defunctorum celebranda nec- 
non ad alia Statuta et ordina- 
tiones pro bono et honore 



216 EARLY DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 

of belonging to a time as early as the reign of 
John or Henry III. This is sufficiently apparent 
from the banded cylindrical shaft in a narrow 
pointed window on the first floor on the south 
side. The old timber roof is also remarkable, 
which presents features at the first glance very 
similar to those met with in the forms and mould- 
ings of Early English architecture. Had the king- 
posts been simply cylindrical instead of being 
octagonally chamfered, its claims to belonging to 
this early date might have passed undisputed, 
aided too as they are by the barrel-shaped vaulting 
of the roof, but the existence of straight tie-beams 
would seem to militate against the antiquity of this 
portion. It is not improbable that these might 
have been inserted at a later period, for instance, 
when the Tudor panelling of the ceiling beneath 
them was added. Without, however, doing more 
than mentioning these as the points by which the 
age of the timber-work must be decided, it is 
enough to have called attention to an extremely 
curious and but little known specimen of domestic 



Collegii praedicti de tempore per breve de privato sigillo et 

in tempus facienda. In cujus de data &c. — Patent 38 Hen. 

&c. Teste Rege apud West- VI., p. 2. m. 1, 
monasteriura xiij. die Martii, 



VARIOUS RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS. 217 

architecture. Conjecture alone can now assign the 
building to its primitive intention. The Domus 
Regia in Northampton has already been spoken 
of in extracts from the Pipe rolls, as well as the 
Larderium; it might have been either of these, 
or, what is perhaps more near the truth, the resi- 
dence of the master of St. John's hospital, especi- 
ally as it is contiguous to it, and now belongs to 
that eleemosynary establishment. 

From an inquisition made by the precept of 
Edw. I., in the third year of his reign, we learn 
the following particulars respecting the town at 
this precise period. 

That the county of Rutland was formerly in the 
hands of the king, and belonged to the castle and 
county of Northampton, but that at this time it 
was in the hands of Edward, earl of Cornwall. 
Amongst the religious houses and their proprie- 
tors, there is mention made of the Prior and 
Convent of St. Andrew ; the Master and Hospital 
of the Holy Trinity; the Friars Preachers; the 
Friars Minors ; and again, 28 Edw. I., the Friars 
of Mount Carmel; the Chapel of St. Martin, 
where the Prior and Convent of St. Andrew were 
bound to support at their own cost, a chauntry for 
the souls of the kings of England; the Master 



218 KNIGHTS TEMPLAR. 

and Hospital of St. John. In the 16th of 
Edw. II. the Augustines were established p . Pro- 
tection granted to the Prior of the Hermit Brothers, 
36 Edw. III., and to the Fraternity of the Holy 
Rood in the Wall, 13 Edw. IV. 

The streets and places enumerated in the time 
of Edw. I., are, Krakeboll street; the Drapery, 
Derne street; Derne gate; Salstrete; Nonnes 
well ; Cougate ; Gyselgot road. 

The Knights Templar first occur on the Pipe 
rolls in the 2nd year of the' reign of Henry II. ; 
we gather from the following words, that the order 
was just constituted. " Et In Elemosinis noviter 
constitutis Militibus de Templo j. marca argenti," 
and the same payment continues annually down 
to the 50th of Hen. TIL In a similar way there 
occurs a fixed annual payment of xx. shillings to 
the monks of the town, commencing the 31st of 
Hen. I., and continuing to a very late period. 

p See other concessions, Edw. III. 
Calend. Rot. Pat, 4 and 11 



The Mint. 



| NTEIES on the Great Roll of 
the Pipe, shew that in the 
27th of Henry EL, (1181,) 
the privilege of minting was 
first granted to the town of 
Northampton, for which the 
nioneyers paid annually into 
the exchequer sixty shillings q . In this way the 
right went on uninterruptedly until the 1st of 
Richard I., after which period the entries vary 
in this mode of contributing to the crown revenue. 
There were several other places in England where 



m 


l^Jafj 


I M 

1 . 


||R-:l=i^,^i||§^ 


iAJP 





i Item Vicecomes reddat 
Compotum de lx. s. de fabrica 
Monetariorum de Norham- 
tona de hoc anno, et de xxx. s. 
de eadem fabrica de dimidio 
anno. In tbesauro liberave- 
runt in ii. talliagiis. Et qui- 
etus est. — Mag. Rot. Pip., 
28 Hen. II. 

Homines de Norhamtona 
xxx. s. de exitu fabrice mone- 



tariorum. — Mag. Rot. Pip., 17 
John. 

Homines Norhamton li. Ii. 
de exitu fabrice monetariorum 
de plurimis annis praeteritis. 
Mag. Rot. Pip., 55 Hen. III. 

Homines Norhampton li. li. 
de exitu fabrice Monetario- 
rum de plurimis annis prae- 
teritis. — Mag. Rot. Pip., 2 
Edw. L 



220 COINAGE LAWS OF ATHELSTANE. 

mints were thus established, and persons em- 
ployed on the coinage of the realm. These officers 
were denominated money ers, {monetarily) assay ers, 
{examinatores monetce,) and keepers of the dies, 
{custodes cuneorum,) all of whom were under the 
control and supervision of the chief justiciary, or 
the treasurer and barons of the exchequer. The 
different modes of making payments into the ex- 
chequer, by pensum,, hlanc, and tale, or nurnerus, 
have been already described, as well as the methods 
by which the royal farms or rents were discharged. 
Sometimes the revenue received its dues in military 
service, in socage, in provisions, or in necessaries 
for the royal household: sometimes in entertain- 
ment, in horses, dogs, or hawks. The money, if 
blanc, was weighed, and if in tale it was tried at 
the exchequer, {comhustione,) and the deficiency 
in either case made up by the public debtor. 

Athelstane in his ordinances had directed (924 
— 941) that there should be but one money over 
all the king's dominion, and that if any man 
minted out of the assigned jurisdiction, the hand 
should be struck off with which he wrought the 
offence, and be set up on the money smithy : but 
if it were an accusation, and he was willing to 
clear himself, then he might go to the hot iron 



EAKLY PRIVILEGE OF MINTING. 221 

and clear the hand wherewith he was charged to 
have done the fraud r . Northampton is one of the 
ten places where money was at this time allowed 
to be coined. The laws of Edgar 8 , (959—975,) 
of EthelredS (978—1016,) and of Canute, (1017 
— 1035,) declare the same uniformity. North- 
ampton had in fact two mints in the tenth cen- 
tury 11 . 

The^ laws might have been relaxed even during 
these early periods, as they certainly were later, 
since the Saxon monarchs derived no inconsiderable 
portion of their revenue from the coinage of their 
kingdom. Thus Athelstane gave the cities of 
London, Canterbury, Winchester, Exeter, and Chi- 
chester, the privilege of minting, as well as the 
boroughs of Lewes, Hastings, Wareham, Shaftes- 
bury, and Northampton, but undoubtedly they de- 
rived income from it, reserving the right, and re- 
taining the dies in their own hands, and of course 
fixing a price, most frequently an arbitrary one, 
upon the issue. Thus they were tempted to renew 
their money, to call it in, melt it down, and send 
it forth for circulation greatly depreciated. This 

r Ancient Laws and Insti- * Ibid., p. 323. 

tutes, p. 207. u Ibid., p. 208. 

■ Ibid., p. 269. 



222 DEPRECIATION OF THE METAL 

fraudulent tampering with the coinage has always 
been the practice of uncivilized and dishonest 
governments. Gustavus the Illrd. reduced the 
standard of Sweden to a discount of fifty per cent., 
and in the Ottoman empire the same system has 
perpetually endured to our own day. In England 
the rate of exchange in the time of Henry VII. 
was ruinous, and English subjects refused the 
current coin of the realm. One of tb$ chief 
motives for summoning the parliament at West- 
minster, 25 Edw. III., was to prevent the export- 
ation of English coin, and the introduction of 
Lusseburghs, or money of false assay x . The chief 
object of all the early statutes of the realm relating 
to this subject seems to have been the prevention 
of clipping, or of the introduction of counterfeit 
money from the continent, it never being surmised 
that the circulating medium would be depreciated 
in England. These are, however, topics which 
hardly fall within the scope of the present en- 
quiry, and must be dismissed without the investi- 
gation they invite. 

Resuming the subject in which we are more 
immediately interested, it appears that in the 7 th 
of John, Peter de Stokes gave sixty marcs for the 

* Rot. Pari. ii. pp. 225, 239. 



MARK OF A DISHONEST GOVERNMENT. 223 

privilege of having a mint and four dies at Xorth- 
ampton y , and two years afterwards writs were 
issued to the moneyers, assayers, and keepers of 
the dies at Northampton, as well as other places, 
directing them by letters patent to appear at West- 
minster to receive there the royal command, and to 
bring their dies sealed up with their seals, and to 
summon all the workers of money to appear there 
at the same time 2 . 

Specimens of the money thus coined at the pro- 
vincial mints, from being so often renewed, became 
extremely scarce, but Euding speaks of it as being 
known by the letters xor, nobt, zs'orham, kc, 
which are stamped on the face. The trades- 
men's tokens of the place, belonging to a much 
later period, are better known, and more easily 
obtainable. 

y Peter de Stokes dat sexa- cimeos illos ei habere faciat, 

ginta marcas pro habendis et quod cambium illud eum 

iiii. cuneis apud Norhamton habere permittat. Mandatum 

et cambio ibidem a Nativitate est etiam "Willi elmo filio 

S ti . Johannis Baptistse anno Othonis quod cuneos illos ei 

regni Regis septimo in unum habere faciat. — Rot. de Fini- 

annum. Et mandatum est bus. 7 John. 
Reginaldo de Cornhill quod z Rot. Pat., 9 John, m. 5. 



The Fire. 




ONNECTED with the his- 
tory of Northampton, is a 
calamity which befel it in 
the seventeenth century, that 
has been described in so 
interesting and vivid a man- 
ner by an eye-witness, that 
the incorporation of his narrative into the present 
volume, will be the best method of presenting the 
account to the reader. It appears to be written 
by a clergyman in the neighbourhood, and the 
scarceness of the volume will be sufficient apology 
for its reprint a . 



a The State of Northamp- 
ton from the beginning of the 
Fire, Sept. 20th, 1675, to 
Nov. 5th. Represented in a 
Letter to a friend in London ; 
and now recommended to all 
well disposed persons, in 
order to Christian charity, 
and speedy relief for the said 



distressed town and people. 
By a Country Minister. Li- 
censed, Nov. 22, 1675. Roger 
L'estrange. London, printed 
for Jonathan Robinson, at the 
Golden Lion in St Paul's 
Churchyard, and William 
Cockeraine, Bookseller in 
Northampton, 1675. 4to. 



DIFFICULTY OF WRITING THIS HISTORY. 225 

Sir, If I had not expected a true and full ac- 
count of the beginning and progress of the dreadful 
fire at Northampton, as also of the losses, state, and 
relief of that distressed people, from a faithful and 
able hand, I should have laboured to have prepared 
this, such as it is, sooner for your satisfaction. I 
do not pretend to inform you with every circum- 
stance and accident, that is not to be looked for ; 
because I know none that had so much leisure from 
their own or other men's concernments, as to ob- 
serve and trace the motions of that terrible ele- 
ment, which was that day carried up and down 
upon the wings of a strong and violent wind. And 
indeed, I find in mine own diligent inquiry, even 
of understanding men, that it is as impossible for 
a man who employs all his endeavours to save his 
own goods and life in one part of a street, to tell 
me when and in what house the fire broke out in 
another place distant from him, as it is for a soldier, 
whose life is engaged in a narrow particular station, 
to relate what was out of his sight, done in every 
wing, in every regiment, troop or company, much 
more in every rank and file of the whole army, at 
once engaged and spread over all the field, as this 
fire was spread over the body, and all parts of the 
town. The all-seeing eye of the Lord of these 
Q 



226 A DESCRIPTION 

mighty hosts of fire and wind, can give an exact 
and perfect story of every particular action of that 
fatal day. No one man can, nor many men apart, 
because they were not in every place, nor observed 
all things, but as each one gives in his observation, 
which must be gathered together to make a story, 
so it must be taken up. And this I assure you, 
that I gathered these following passages, as well as 
I was able, and from persons as able to inform me, 
and as distinctly related, as can be expected from 
persons under the disorders of care, fear, and amaze- 
ment at the same time. 

That I may represent Northampton in its ruins, 
it may not be amiss to present the figure and situa- 
tion of it as it stood and flourished ; because some 
may peruse these lines, that knew it not, and the 
better conceive the course of the fire, which I shall 
shew you, and the great alteration of it, from a 
beautiful town, to pits and rubbish. Northampton 
might well contend with the best inland city or 
town, that is not seated upon a navigable river, for 
sweet and wholesome air, pleasantness of situation, 
plenty and cheapness of corn and butchers' meat, 
good ancient buildingSj dry and commodious cellar- 
ages, broad and cleanly streets, a spacious market- 
hill, fine and profitable gardens and orchards, within 
the w r alls (while it was beautified and honoured 



of the town. :22i 

with their standing.) The prospect of it was very 
delightful from QueenVcross, which stands upon a 
hill in London road, within a mile distance from it, 
You come down from that cross to a bottom, called 
Cotton-end, and from thence, passing a fair stone 
bridge over the river Nen or Xine, you entered the 
town on a flat, till you come within the south-gate, 
and thence keeping the northern road, you went 
out at the north-gate, overcoming three ascents. 
The first in the Bridge-street, as somewhat steep, 
but was made easy by the diverting sight of good 
buildings on either hand, and a neat front on the 
top of that street. You might observe the town 
divided into east and west ■ to the west-gate through 
the Gold-street by St. Peter's church, to the east- 
gate fetching a little compass by All-Hallows' 
church, through Abingdon-street near St. Giles's 
church. From the top of the first ascent, leaving 
on the right hand that great and well-built church, 
All-Hallows, the chief in the town, you come into 
the Drapery, a broad, and for the most part a well- 
built street, and finely fronted with graceful houses ; 
on the right-hand of which, was one of the best 
open market-places in England. This second ascent 
was more easy and leisurely than the former, and 
turning a little on the left hand, you went through 



228 ITS OVERTHROW. 

the Sheep-street, up a moderate ascent to the north- 
gate, having St. Sepulchre's church on the right 
hand. By this description of the town, you imagine 
that it stood on a side of a hill, facing the south 
sun, and that the middle and lowest part was shel- 
tered from the north wind : that it was divided into 
four quarters, had four great gates, east, west, 
north, and south, and had a church in every quar- 
ter, only All-Hallows stood southward, and near 
the heart of the town. The civil division of it was 
into five wards, distinguished from the four winds 
or quarters, and the fifth was the chequer- ward in 
the middle. 

And now I may say what, and more than the 
men of Jericho said to Elisha ; c ' The situation is 
pleasant, but the water is naught and the ground 
barren." Northampton was beautiful for the situa- 
tion, the water good, and the ground about it rich. 
It stood above the river, which ran in the south, 
beating on both sides upon very rich meadow down 
quite to Peterborough : and at which gate soever 
you went out, you went out of a sweet town into a 
rich and noble champaign b . 

But now (alas !) the glory and beauty of it is 
more than scorched with fire, it is vanished into 

b In the original, champion. 



ITS OVERTHROW. 229 

smoke. The great and goodly church is become 
its own sepulchre, and the cellars the graves and 
pits into which the best contrived dwellings are 
tumbled and hurried. It was a city upon a hill, 
but now God hath turned it into a burning beacon, 
to give warning to towns and cities of judgments 
that may suddenly invade them, and break in upon 
them, except they receive and obey His laws, and 
cease to provoke Him by their tolerated disobedi- 
ence. God began with London, is come as far as 
Northampton to execute His judgments; who knows 
whither He will ride next in a burning chariot, and 
where He will make an end ? were those citizens 
and these townsmen sinners above all men ? " I tell 
you nay, but except you repent," kc. Have not 
you your sins also ! yea, London sins as rife as 
fashions ! nothing hath happened to them but what 
may be common to you, whenever God's forbear- 
ance is come up to an end. The heart of London, 
and the heart of Northampton, were burnt out in 
the same month : who can secure themselves till 
September come about again from the same, or as 
great a judgment, if you slight these warnings ? 

God who hath set the bounds of our habitations, 
hath set down with Himself the term of our posses- 
sion of them. Every man hath his appointed time, 



230 THE BAY OP THE FIRE. 

which takes in means and ways of coming to his 
stated period ; so have societies and corporations of 
men their appointed times ; a time to grow, and a 
time to decay, (they are subject to consumptions 
and fevers ;) thus strong and high they shall grow 
in numbers of men, and prosperity ; thus long they 
shall continue, and no longer. And what time 
soever God speaks concerning a nation, a city, a 
palace, yea, a cottage, to pluck up and pull down ; 
He speaks to the fire, Burn, to the wind, Blow, and 
carry it whither I will: here it shall take, there 
burn, and here it shall stop. 

The utmost term that God would grant for 
Northampton to continue as it was, was the twen- 
tieth day of September, 1675. Hundreds of in- 
habitants were turned out of their houses, upon a 
little or no warning at all. To some the sovereign 
Lord would not grant so much as leave to remove 
their goods off His ground ; not so much as a bed 
to lie on, or a garment to shift them, not a stool to 
sit on, nor a dish to eat in. To others He was 
pleased to allow a few hours (of terror and distrac- 
tion) to remove and begone ; but He would not be 
entreated to give His dearest servants, not another 
day, not that night, no not that afternoon. 

God called for a strong west wind to be ready at 



THE PLACE WHERE THE FIRE BEGAN. 231 

His command, to carry a dreadful fire whither He 
would have it The unhappy instrument of that 
destruction was said to be an infamous and com- 
mon woman, who lived in the end of St, Mary's- 
street, next the castle (in the west.) The manner 
thus, (as I am informed upon the place ;) she had 
something boiling on a fire, and left the fire care- 
lessly, and went to the next house ; when she had 
been there a little while, she said to her companion, 
I shall go and fetch my child, and in a moment, 
finding her house on fire, it seems took up her 
bastard, and ran out, and away, crying, I shall be 
hanged, I shall be hanged. She is not yet returned, 
nor found, to tell us what she did. That street was 
full upon the wind, far from help, and the principal 
part of the town, which was to be the theatre of 
judgment, and consisted of the poorer sort of 
houses, thatched with straw, fit matter to kindle a 
consuming fire. 

The fire brake out about half an hour past eleven, 
came on directly to the back part of the Horse- 
market, strengthening itself with ricks of corn and 
maltings, it spread out its wing to the south, and 
lower end of that market. The hideous cry of Fire, 
fire, came up post to town : but when some heard 
it was so far off, and in meaner dwellings, they 



232 



ITS PROGRESS; 



made the lighter of it, and others hoped it might 
spend itself and go out, in a large cherry-ground, 
and other orchards in the way. 

All-Hallows' bells jangled their last and doleful 
knell, presently after the chimes had gone twelve 
in a more pleasant tune : and soon after the wind, 
which did fly swifter than horsemen, carried the 
fire near the Dern-gate, at least half a mile from 
the place where it began, and into St. Giles's-street 
in the east, and consumed every house therein, save 
one (formerly a gate-house) whose end- walls were 
higher than the roof, and by them preserved. When 
some that were strong and active saw the streams 
of fire driven before an impetuous wind, seeing that 
nothing was like to stand before it, they made all 
haste to shift for themselves, and to save their 
goods. All hands and arms were full, all busy in 
laying oat, and mislaying what they shall never see 
again. Some active men did labour all they could 
to save some houses; but what could be done in 
such a sudden surprise ? when so many places were 
on fire at once, and so many timber buildings were 
as fuel dried, and laid in for this dreadful fire. 

Some that consider not the confounding circum- 
stances that people were under, have been apt to 
cast upon them the blame of despair and negligence : 



AND ITS VIOLENCE. 233 

but they must be silent, when they believe upon the 
word of all I spake with, that all that is burnt was 
irresistibly gone in three hours' time ; although I 
know that every house was not burnt in that time, 
for some few did not begin to burn till six o'clock 
at night, but it was too strong to be withstood, and 
past hope of being saved by that time. Had it 
been a leisurely fire, proceeding in order of houses 
and streets, then buckets might have quenched the 
thirst of a dry and greedy element ; then one house 
might have been blown up in sacrifice, to have 
saved a street : but this fire would have scorned an 
engine, nothing less than the opening of windows 
in heaven could have quenched its rage. Houses 
were casually blown up by barrels of powder, laid 
up for sale, "but the fire kept up its fury and its 
way for all that. To talk now of engines, and blow- 
ing up of houses, are but suppositions, which could 
not then preserve a house any more than now re- 
build one. We may as wisely say, had it rained 
all that day, the town might have been saved from 
burning. 

Distracted people ! how busy were they in empty- 
ing out their goods, labouring to be beforehand 
with the swift destroyer, that came upon some of 
them before their fears had notice of it. The fire 



234 DESTITUTIONS AND DANGERS 

was fled over the town, but did not forget what it 
had to do, and therefore brake over the spacious 
planted grounds, seized upon the College-lane, and 
finding there great quantities of oil and tallow, and 
other combustible matter, brake upon the back- 
side of the Drapery in a little time. Some threw 
their goods into their cellars ; there or no where ; 
some into the church, (that had more time and 
leisure than the former,) in which they were con- 
sumed with it; others into the church-yard, and 
were there turned to ashes. The spacious Market- 
hill was covered with all sorts of wares and goods ; 
these the affrighted owners were forced to leave 
one among another, when they were enclosed with 
a wall of fire, and only one little door of escape left 
them to run out at, by Dr. Danvers' house, the only 
house that stands in all that row, having no neigh- 
bour-dwelling to bear it company, nor out-offices 
to serve its necessities, they being burnt, and itself 
hardly preserved. Some had better help, better 
conveniencies of orchards and closes than others 
had ; some more time than others, or else the loss 
had been vastly greater. And although the fire 
spoiled and consumed many goods, — it spared neither 
cross nor pump, nor timber drawn into the Market- 
place for the sessions-house, — yet what the fire 



Or A HOUSELESS PEOPLE DESCUIBED. 235 

spared in that and other places, cruel thieves, that 
come in to spoil the spoiled, were more merciless 
than a merciless fire. May the stolen sugars, fruit, 
spices, linen, clothes, bedding, or whatever else 
these men of prey took by fraud, be bitter, hot, 
cold, and uneasy to them, till they have eased their 
consciences of so great a guilt. But divine justice 
will take a course with them, in a more dreadful 
day than that was, except they repent, restore, give 
satisfaction, or be forgiven. 

Sir, I know you can understand without my 
telling you, that this miserable people were loath 
to leave their convenient and comfortable dwellings, 
but more loath to lose their wares and goods ; but 
they were forced to leave the one to a fire that 
would have them ; and at last forced to leave both 
house, and shop, and goods, to save their lives. 
Give me leave to try, if I can make you sensible 
of their condition, in a dull and misty and cold 
representation of it : for a lively image I cannot 
draw, because my bosom cannot hold their passions, 
nor my pen weep out their tears. No words can 
report the cries, fears, dangers, distractions, care- 
fulness, and amazedness of young and old, that 
doleful day. Oh ! the roaring of fire and wind, 
what a thunder in the air ! what clouds of smoke ! 



236 DESTITUTIONS AND DANGERS 

what tearing cracks of timber! ancient couples, 
beams and walls, keeping close to one another till 
forced to part, suffering themselves to be burnt 
inch by inch before they could be separated ! But 
what were these to the more sensible outcries of a 
people decreed to ruin ? If you will carry wind and 
flames and burning houses up and down to shew 
them, then, and not before, will I undertake to 
relate what a distracted multitude thought, spake, 
and did, who could not tell what to think, speak, 
or do, that might prove successful. There were 
old men and women, children and infants, women 
lying-in, others full of the small-pox, (which had 
been much in town,) mothers that gave suck. What 
could this helpless multitude do? whither could 
they creep or run? The consuming fire itself 
brought certain news that it w r as coming. The 
fire and wind cried Fire, and did drow r n the people's 
cries, and the hideous sound of bells. Oh the con- 
fusion of language, thoughts, and actions of a sur- 
prised people ! how quiet and secure were they but 
a little while before ? Some were calling upon God, 
sanctifying themselves and all they had, commit- 
ting themselves and their affairs to Him; some 
preparing their goods for London, others ready to 
sit down to dinner, and behold a cry, Fire, fire : 



OF A HOUSELESS PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 237 

clouds of smoke, pillars and sheets of fire covering 
the face of heaven ! fire in the west, that had left 
but few houses or pieces to stand ; fire in the east, 
that carried all before it, and in every quarter, and 
the body of the town hemmed in with fire ; and the 
stately tower of the great church turned into a 
chimney sucking and drawing up the fire and smoke 
from within it, and discharging them out again in 
a mighty body. What a sight was this to have 
pleased a Nero ? or such as must be Roman, or 
think they are not Christian ? 

What a change was here by five, by four, yea, 
by three and two of the clock ? how long are many 
hands in rearing and adorning one house ? North- 
ampton was raised to its late perfection at the ex- 
pense of many generations, one adding to another ; 
but if the great God speak to the fire, Burn, and to 
the wind, Blow it, a few hours are time enough to 
demolish it ; how terrible is God in His judgments ? 
how impossible is it for me to feel myself in the 
condition of a people banished, ah aris et focis, 
turned out of doors, and as it were excommunicated 
their Church ? but whither were they gone ? into 
the fields, and whither else they could, some one 
way, and some another. Great was the care of 
people over little ones, and such as could not well 



238 DESTITUTIONS AND DANGERS 

escape themselves ; and the waky providence had 
disposed of them in safety, though they knew not 
where to find one another. When the worst was 
come, the wife's jointure, and the child's portion, 
and the estate which was wont to maintain them, 
was exhausted that expensive day : how hastily did 
they weave up and down, making inquiries after one 
another ; some wanting words to tell you who they 
sought for, and others at the same loss to tell them 
tidings ! how they looked and wrung their hands 
they themselves cannot tell us now. What rest 
could parents take that night, missing their child- 
ren? some had wandered into neighbouring vil- 
lages, where they had never been before, and were 
not heard of till next day. Who can conceive the 
sadness till they found out their relations ? and 
when they met, who can express the joy that they 
were alive ? although many had not left them 
wherewith to refresh them, feed them, clothe them, 
or wherein to lodge that night. But God remem- 
bered mercy ! the gentry who were preserved in the 
town, and near it, and others to their power, turned 
their houses into inns and hospitals and ware- 
houses, to refresh and comfort their distressed 
neighbours. And now after that God had smoked 
them out, He was pleased to hive them in, many 



OF A HOUSELESS PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 239 

families crowded into one house ; and eating that 
little the fire had left of their stocks, till the com- 
passionate neighbourhood could send in provi- 
sions. And now having followed them from their 
own, into strange and uneasy lodgings, I shut 
up my discourse, and lead you to view the con- 
dition of that ruined town as it was found next 
day. 

Sir, had you seen the dreadful fire that night, 
you might have guessed what a place you were like 
to find it next morning; but really, I could not 
have imagined it to be so soon reduced so unlike 
itself ! next morning you might have seen the late 
dwellers come to see what was left them. Oh ! 
how strangely were they changed ! poor frighted, 
tired and amazed men, how were their faces 
changed ! they looked as if they had come from 
under-ground, out of mines and coal-pits. They 
looked not only like men that had lost their rest, 
but spent with cares and fasting, scorched with 
heat, and broken with distractions ! dirty faces, 
scalded eyes, and their eye-lashes hung with mortar 
made of tears and dust blown into them. In the 
afternoon you might see neither town or townsmen 
scarce, but ruins instead of orderly piles and streets, 
and strangers come in to view them. The inhabit- 



240 THE TOWN NEXT MORNING. 

ants were gone, some to search suspicious houses 
for lost goods, others to get together some ends of 
something that was left, or to seek out new lodging 
for their afflicted families; others watching their 
goods, till help could come to carry them away. 
Very few could tell me what was left, besides their 
lives, and a charge to maintain. 

The first observation I made, was upon the be- 
haviour of men, and I found them apt to tears, 
sensible of the hand of God, calm, and thankful 
for their lives. 

My next observation was upon the ruins, and 
when I have said all I can say of them, it is this, 
that they were ruins. Nothing standing above the 
cellars that was combustible, which was not either 
burnt or burning down to ashes. No timber left, 
from great beams, even to cheeks of doors and 
lintels. When God compared His people to an use- 
less vine — " Behold it is cast into the fire for fuel, 
the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the 
midst of it is burnt : is it meet for any work ?" 
Even so did He use hundreds of houses, and the 
best in the principal streets of Northampton : I 
hope He will deal graciously with the men, and 
make them a fruitful vine, having pruned and 
purged them. "What was to be seen above ground, 



WHAT MADE THE LOSS SO GREAT. 241 

but a few fronts of stone, partition walls, and 
chimneys ? If yon had no sense but eyes, you 
might think them to be ruins of an ancient date, 
but other senses would persuade you they were 
but new, the walls and streets being glowing hot, 
&c. And this was noted to them on Michaelmas 
day (when the mayor and magistrates, as many as 
had a gown, were in a colour suitable to their pre- 
sent condition, and not former state), that the upper 
lintels were not left for the cormorant and bittern 
to lodge in. Zeph. ii. 

And for several reasons, they who saw that fire 
whose epithet is, The Dreadful Fire of London ! 
and this, do say, this was the more furious and 
destructive in its proportion. 

Thus, Sir, in general, you may believe the fire 
and losses were very great : but if you will give me 
leave, I will shew you what made both so great, 
First, the former years being bad for carriage, and 
fuel dear, they were almost out of stock, till this 
good summer came, and great plenty, at moderate 
rates. This was a time to provide for this and 
another winter. It was one part of the providence 
of Northampton men to lay in something towards 
a wet and dear time, in a good summer. They 
were crammed full ; and now what was laid up for 
it 



242 WHAT MADE 

future time was consumed in one day, before they 
had tamed their heaps. 

Secondly, as the town was full of fuel, so trades- 
men were full of goods. They had newly furnished 
themselves with the commodities of Sturbridge 
fair. Besides that, some had taken the advantage 
of the cheapness of all sorts of wares and goods, 
and of carriage, and laid out as far as their stocks 
would reach, in hopes of a stirring market : and 
many, if not all or most, had stored themselves for 
their winter trade. And as the shopkeeper could 
not be fuller, so neither the innkeeper, nor hus- 
bandman : and such as laid in their crops for malt 
were very full ; and none had any time to make 
returns. Prom this consideration some may readily 
infer, that others that gave them credit must lose, 
or hazard with them. This is not unlikely. But 
it will be found that the loss is heavy upon them 
alone, and apart. For, 1. As few of them traded 
upon credit, as any town can be found to do. 2. 
Their trade was but a home trade, (I except the 
shoemaker and hosier,) and wary and prudent men 
could guess at the compass of it, and their pru- 
dence told them that the more credit they had, 
the less profit they made. 3. As few men failed 
and broke in Northampton, as in any town of its 



THE LOSS SO GREAT. 243 

dimensions, (and consequently as few lost by deal- 
ing with them.) A good argument of their dex- 
terity, in ordering comparatively a small trade, to 
live so decently and plentifully as they did. 4. 
Many of them had plentiful estates in houses, that- 
brought in good rent, and many lived in their own, 
whereby their losses fall heavily upon themselves : 
but the wise God thought no less enough. 

Thirdly, The instrumental causes of this sad 
desolation, were the dryness of the weather, the 
violence of the wind, which was a swift chariot for 
the all-subduing fire ; and it is to be noted, that God 
planted (pardon the impropriety) the wind to blow 
up the heart of the town, to which St. MaryV 
street stood level. And of that vehement wind, 
it is to be observed, beside that it whirled the fire 
at its pleasure up and down ; that it did also beat 
down the smoke, and raise up the dust, which was 
a great discouragement of all endeavours to save 
the town, and afflicted people ! They had dust to 
blind them, smoke to stifle them, and fire that 
singed and scorched them as they passed up and 
down. Sometimes it gave some hopes of sparing, 
by turning two points north, (as one scholar tells 
me,) but dashed all again, by veering to the w T est. 
Another ingenious observer (who took care to save 



844 THE DAMAGE. 

a neighbour's house near his own) tells me that 
the fire fell upon the thatch, struck upon it, took 
it and danced for six minutes at least, and by a 
sudden turn the wind carried it away, and with a 
little labour the house escaped. 

Sir, if I have been too large in generals, I will 
reward your patience, by giving you satisfaction in 
the following particulars. 

1. The greatness of the loss, as given in. 2. 
The number of houses totally destroyed. 3. The 
influence of this loss. 4. The relief. 5. The dis- 
posal of it. Conclude with some few remarks. 

1. The loss, as given in, amounts to one hun- 
dred two thousand and eight pounds odd money, 
besides the church, &c, to the value of about fifty 
thousand pound ; a vast loss, if we consider how 
long an inland town, that hath no manufacture in 
it, that drives none of the quickest trades, is grow- 
ing up, and how long they must needs be in re- 
gaining some part of it. To lose the product of 
twenty or thirty years' care and pains, both what 
was left them, and added by them, is a very great 
affliction. But the Lord gave before He took away. 
Hereby many in the middle part of their lives, or the 
very latter end of their days, are sent back to begin 
the world anew, or driven to end it in a low estate. 



NUMBER OF HOUSES BURNT. 245 

It may be an injur}' to others that some few are 
suspected to give in their losses with a cipher 
perhaps too much : if there be any such, I heartily 
wish they would blot it out, lest such a cipher 
eat out the figure : but again, it is verily thought, 
that others have been very scrupulous and sparing. 
If men cannot be disproved, we ought to suspend 
our censures. 

2. The number of houses totally consumed, be- 
side outhouses, fee, is about 600, wherein above 
700 families did dwell. And these monuments of 
sparing mercy stand in the four quarters of the 
town, as the arms and legs drawn out in torture, 
cut off from the body ; and it is as great a wonder 
that here and there a house should escape, as that 
the rest should be brought to ruin in so short a 
time. Some few houses remain near the church, and 
only one tenement in the Drapery, from the street, 
hardly seen to the street at this time. The chief 
church in town only burnt, the rest untouched. 

3. The influence and effects of this sweeping 
judgment fall upon many beside the immediate 
sufferers. ] . Upon the poor, which stood All- 
Hallows'' parish in ten pound the month, the roll 
would have been raised to eleven pound this winter. 
Bur now the poor are multiplied, who, since the 



246 EFFECTS OF THE FIRE; RELIEF SENT. 

fire fell into their quarters (poor creatures) lay 
within the walls to the open heavens (till now of 
late), except such as got into churches. Thither 
the fire forced them, whither God's commands, nor 
mercy, nor exhortations could invite them. A 
judgment fitted to the sin, a judgment all voice, as 
in other instances. 

Secondly, the citizens will lose their customers, 
the countryman will lose his market, and the land- 
lord must fall his rent, if Northampton be not re- 
lieved : yea, more, many a man must go farther to 
seek for an honest man to teach his child a trade ; 
and many a one will want a service, that cannot 
well be kept and maintained at home. 

4. The relief was considerable, as it was season- 
able to this impoverished people. Many have told 
me, they found tender mercy and compassion, and 
that they found more friends than ever they 
thought they had. The goodness of God and men 
was admired. The kindness of a night's lodging, 
of a small benevolence was magnified. The noble 
earl of Northampton, who came that fatal evening 
to see the fire, was affected with the sight, and sent 
great store of provisions the next day. Many 
other persons of quality, neighbour towns, and vil- 
lages, were very forward and generous. The bold 



CONSULTATION IN THE TOWN HALL. 247 

and raking poor had a glut, but the modest house- 
keeper looked pale and thin, till necessity over- 
came their modesty, and then they were respected. 

The mayor sent messengers with letters to en- 
treat the noblemen and gentlemen to meet in the 
Town Hall, to take their distressed condition into 
consideration. There appeared the Saturday fol- 
lowing the dreadful fire, the right honourable the 
earl of Northampton, recorder of the town : three 
lords, Sir Richard Rainsford, one of the judges of 
the King's Bench. Seven or eight baronets and 
knights, and many justices of the peace and gentle- 
men. The meeting was principally managed by 
the earl. The result of all their discourses, was a 
subscription to two papers, to this purpose. 

"We the noblemen and gentlemen do promise 
to pay the several sums set down over against our 
names/' &c. The one was towards the re-building 
of the town, and the other was for the payment of 
Dr. Conant's salary, (which was 100 L per annum,) 
and for the relief of the poor, and other uses of the 
town. 

They named Robert Haslerig, William Tate, 
Henry Edmonds, Richard Rainsford, Esquires, re- 
ceivers and treasurers. 

Several sums were gathered speedily, upon the 



248 DISTRIBUTION OF MONEY, &C. 

news of the dreadful fire, in several corporations, 
by the university of Cambridge, and already ga- 
thered, but not received, by the university of Oxon, 
towns, villages, and private persons : all which 
come to about £3000. 

These several sums of money were paid into the 
hands of Robert Haslerig, Esq., living in town; 
who with the other gentlemen's consent, made a 
very seasonable distribution of a great sum among 
the sufferers, wherein they had a respect to their 
losses, to their trades, and to their conditions and 
disability to go on. This was a timely assistance 
given men, that were hard put to it to strike up 
sheds and shops, and to take in some winter pro- 
visions. In this distribution they designed to 
preserve the road, to bring in the market, to set 
trade on foot, to help the inferior tradesmen. Be- 
sides, they took order to lay in a great stock of 
coal, to be served out to the inhabitants at their 
need in the approaching winter. They disbursed 
money to the officers of the parish to pay their 
poor. And lastly, they have, and are fitting up 
houses for the poor to live in, who had nothing 
left but bare walls without a roof. 

The care, and pains, and tenderness of these 
worthy gentlemen deserve the grateful acknowledg- 



TO THE SUFFERERS. 249 

ment of the distressed sufferers ; and indeed they 
seem to me to have a humble sense of the mercy 
and favour. 

I have been the more punctual in these things, 
as to rectify the reports of vast sums said to be 
flowing in, and besides many other reasons, to en- 
courage liberal souls to generous acts of charity, 
when they see the treasury so well dispensed ; both 
deposited into, and disposed by the hands of per- 
sons of quality, estate, and integrity. 

There was about sixty pound sent from several 
persons of quality, and others, to Dr. Conant, 
which was carefully distributed, according to the 
intention of the donors. 

The forward and noble beneficence of particular 
persons, and the kind and Christian expression of 
love made by corporations and villages to North- 
ampton brought low, though but a small beginning 
to a great many, (nor the whole exceeding the loss 
of some one or two men,) hath raised the minds of 
many, so that there is hope in Northampton ; but 
yet there are many discouragements, that threaten 
the life of it in some, and keep it from being over- 
joyful in the most cheerful temper. 

Besides these kindnesses from men, there are 
some eminent providences which have brought 



250 GRACIOUS PROVIDENCES 

kind remembrances from heaven, to a people under 
a displeasure. The first is, that this calamity is 
fallen upon them in a year of plenty. Had it 
fallen upon them in one of the years past, many 
that were glad of a piece of bread, must have 
perished for want of bread. London fire consumed 
it, after a plague, in a time of war, the nation 
under taxes : Northampton hath the odds in this, 
that she is fallen, when a nation may the better 
raise her up. 

The second sweet and reviving providence is, 
that second summer which God was pleased to give 
us; He said to an approaching winter, Keep off 
awhile. He hath given a midsummer-time after 
Michaelmas. He said to the sun, Shine thou still. 

What a mercy hath this been to poor North- 
ampton ! by the favour of the weather abundance 
of coal came in, (even as far as Wedgbury, above 
forty miles,) and as cheap as in summer. A dread- 
ful fire had done enough to starve them, con- 
suming their stacks and heaps ; but the sun con- 
tinuing in its strength relieved them, by bringing 
firing to them, which I hope will be better spent. 
What the fire destroyed the sun restored. Thus 
God doth correct and take into His arms ! justice 
and fury made quick riddance, but mercy made 



TOWARDS THE TOWN. 251 

haste after them. Through the goodness of the 
season all sorts of materials for buildings came 
whistling in/ (the carter meeting with no ruts nor 
sloughs to put him out of tune.) Yea, deals came 
down from London at as low or lower rates than 
country ash. By this means workmen came in, 
go on, not being beaten off with weather. 

By this means raw walls, new-sawn and un- 
seasoned boards, have been aired and seasoned : by 
this means full markets have come in, and the 
market-man hath not felt the inconvenience of a 
bad standing for himself and horses. 

And lastly, by this means Northampton is 
brought up a little above its ruins, and her new 
buildings to imitate Bartholomew fair. And in 
this posture I shall leave it, praying heartily, that 
God would speak to Northampton, It shall be 
built; and take pleasure in the now distressed 
people, and their posterity. 

And now Sir there remains but the last part of 
this trouble, and I will relieve your patience by a 
conclusion, namely some observations upon, or 
rather drawn from this severe but righteous pro- 
vidence, which speaks to other places with a 
loud voice. 

1. It hath pleased God to strike at all con- 



252 OBSERVATIONS 

ditions of persons, and all the sins of the town. 
He hath in great mercy passed over the houses 
of many of the gentry, who lived there for their 
own pleasure or conveniency, which hath proved a 
great relief to many of the distressed neighbours, 
but many of that quality do also bear their share of 
loss and trouble : I desire not to be critical or 
censorious. God took in all together, the righte- 
ous and the wicked fare alike, though for different 
ends : it hath happened to the good, to make 
them better, with a gracious design no doubt : 
and to the wicked God saith, "Why will you die ?" 
He stretcheth out His hand to them ; but if they 
turn not " He hath whet His sword," &c. The long- 
suffering of God, which waited but till the flood, 
doth wait for their repentance after the fire. that 
they would fly from wrath to come ! There were 
and are in Northampton " good figs, very good :" 
(such as obey "every ordinance of man for the 
Lord's sake, whether the king as supreme," &c. 
Such as "feared God and wrought righteousness.") 
But as the good figs were to go to captivity, so 
now these shall pass through a burning furnace. 
And there were very naughty figs, " evil, very evil, 
that cannot be eaten." And so much the worse, 
because God came long expecting fruit, having 



UPON THE FIRE. 253 

long been a husbandman to it, and more especially 
to that parish that is almost totally destroyed. 
God hath diminished two other parishes, (St. 
Peter's, "is it not a little one?" is spared entire,) 
there was iniquity in those skirts : but why God 
should stretch out His hand with a flaming sword 
over All-Hallows more than others, I can give no 
other reason, but that of the prophet ; " You have I 
known of all the families of the earth, therefore 
will I punish you for your iniquities." They have 
been better taught than others, and made the chief 
parish in town. God sent to them prophets, and 
wise men, and scribes, He hath been a reprover of 
them all. Few parishes perhaps (I am sure I 
know but few) that have had such labourers as 
they for five successions. Security, luke-warnmess, 
and bearing them that are evil, are the sins that 
God took worse from magistrates and people, than 
from other towns. How hath the Spirit of God 
striven with them, and within this year ? They 
know the occasion. And fools that make a mock 
of sin may now believe that God can be in earnest. 
— O Lord, laugh not at their calamity, who have 
set at nought Thy counsel, and would none of 
Thy reproof; and let them not be as dross in the 
furnace. — 



254 OBSERVATIONS UPON THE FIRE. 

2. God hath dealt with Northampton in this 
fire, mixing mercy with judgment, as in other pro- 
vidences : here is mercy and judgment, patience 
and fury. " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim V 3 
&c. He hath made their houses like Admah ; but 
to the people He saith, " yet how shall I give thee 
up?" Some that were fallen into fellowship with 
gross works of darkness, and a long time of 
languishing and repentance, and gave signs of it, 
discovered and warned others. But their compa- 
nions went on. How then ? have some escaped ? 
What execution hath God done in the face of the 
world, in open streets ? Night-walking, boldness 
in sin, swearing and drunkenness punished in open 
streets by sudden death. " Remember Lot's wife/' 
Remember S's, Fs, O's wife. There was mercy, 
and here judgment. Of consorts and* companions, 
that grind in the same mill of sin, " one shall be 
taken, and another left/' 

3. Prom the unhappy hand that kindled this 
dreadful fire, I observe that they who escape 
deserved punishments, may be justly made the 
unhappy instruments of punishing those that should 
have been justly severe with them. And it may 
give notice to magistrates, to look after the skirts, 
the back lanes of their towns, that iniquity lodge 



NUMBER OP PERSONS BURNT. 255 

not there. — The cages of unclean birds may bring 
whole towns to ruin. 

4. It is marvellous that a fire breaking out at 
noon-day should get so much strength in so short 
a time, consume so many goods and houses ; yea, 
take away so many lives as eight persons. And on 
the contrary, it seems to me a wonderful inercy, 
that so few perished in the fire, when I consider 
with what a mighty stream and force the fire and 
wind came on in some narrow passages ; that many 
people were spent and faint, their spirits spent, 
their eyes dazzled, or blinded with dust and 
smoke ; that some houses fell down when persons 
were running by for life; and that many had no 
other passage open to fly for their lives, but by 
venturing close by raging fire. And here I may 
add, what I received from a very worthy friend, 
that he saw a country fellow bring up a barrel of 
gunpowder out of an apothecary's cellar, when the 
Gold-street was burning, and covering it with his 
coat, went away with it in his arms, which might 
have been his own death, and the death of many 
others. 

5. "Whereas some may look upon this as casually 
begun, and grown to so great a mischief by over- 
sights and neglects of people, I cannot but see 



256 CONCLUSION. 

a great plot of many conspiring circumstances, and 
all laid by the holy, just, wise, and absolute Lord, 
both for punishment, correction, and trial. I will 
sum up those that readily occur. That the wind 
should sit so full upon that part of the town, 
that the fire should kindle in a street so com- 
bustible, far from help speedily to suppress it, so 
level upon the principal places of the town : that it 
should fly so far as the east in a very little while ; 
that the heart of the town should be environed, 
and barricaded with flames, that there was no 
getting in, no getting out for teams, when they 
would have done most good, when the shops and 
houses were most emptied, and laid out of doors, 
ready to be carried away. How easily might 
teams have cleared the Market-hill and church- 
yard if the four great avenues and passages had 
been passable ? How little did many towns think 
Northampton to stand in so much need of help? 
These and more being put together make me con- 
clude, " Is there evil in the city, and the Lord 
hath not done it?" "God is known by the judg- 
ments which He executeth. Selah." "Go ye now 
unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set 
My name at the first, and see what I did to it for 
the wickedness of My people Israel." Jer. vii. 12. 



CONCLUSION. 



25/ 



And now, Sir, because I said I will conclude, 
I will instead of making an apology for myself, 
why so late ? why so long ? or to others why 
so short ? or why I ? I will only say, that I 
have some feeling of the sufferings of my worthy 
and dear acquaintance, pray it may rise higher and 
better, that I hope your interest and endeavours 
may do good, that I have endeavoured to make 
their deplorable condition speak for them, and 
that I owe you a far greater service when you 
shall command it, if I can perform it. For I am, 

Sir, 
Your most obliged servant, 
E. P. 




OXFORD : 
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